SoFi and Kraken Partner to Integrate Financial Infrastructure
Digital bank SoFi and crypto exchange Kraken say they are teaming up to connect their financial infrastructure. The idea is simple: users get 24/7 dollar transfers and crypto trading.
Under the deal, Kraken’s parent company, Payward, will join SoFi’s settlement network SEN. That gives Kraken’s institutional clients a way to move dollars and handle liquidity at any hour, without sitting around for old-school banking hours. And Kraken will list SoFi’s bank-issued stablecoin, SoFiUSD. SoFi, for its part, will tap Kraken Prime as another liquidity source for clients’ crypto trades.
SoFi CEO Anthony Noto said, "Financial markets are open, so the financial system should not be closed." Payward co-CEO David Ripley said millions of users will buy crypto for the first time in apps they already use every day, and the infrastructure behind those apps should link up with deep, liquid markets.
The partnership also brings SoFi back into digital assets. It already offers crypto trading in its app and has rolled out a dollar-backed stablecoin, SoFiUSD. Back in April, SoFi launched Big Business Banking, tying corporate banking to digital asset services. The companies said the relationship could later stretch into payments, treasury management, lending, and other digital asset services.