Payward, the parent company of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, is exploring becoming a full-service bank outside the United States to extend beyond crypto trading into banking services, asset management and financial infrastructure. Co-CEO Dave Ripley, speaking at the Wyoming Blockchain Symposium 2026, said the firm is studying full banking qualifications in some overseas markets and is unlikely to choose the United States first in the near term, without naming a jurisdiction or license type. He identified trading, banking and asset management as Payward’s three product priorities, describing banking as payments and fund transfers, lending, yield and custody—areas he said Kraken already operates to varying degrees. The international banking push is separate from Payward’s U.S. application for an OCC national trust company charter. Kraken Financial, Payward’s Wyoming special purpose depository institution, has since March 2024 offered institutional digital-asset custody and deposit accounts and earlier this year gained limited access to a Federal Reserve master account, though it cannot lend customer fiat like a traditional bank and lacks FDIC insurance.