Kraken Partners with Franklin Templeton to Tokenize Financial Products

Kraken's parent company Payward has announced a strategic partnership with Franklin Templeton, one of the world's largest asset managers. This deal brings together two major players in the financial industry to tokenize traditional financial products and distribute them through Kraken's exchange infrastructure.

The immediate deliverable is an integration of Franklin Templeton's BENJI money market fund into the Kraken platform, where it will function as collateral and a cash management tool for institutional clients. This allows professional traders to park idle capital in a yield-bearing, on-chain dollar instrument without leaving the Kraken ecosystem.

Beyond BENJI, the two firms plan to use Payward's xStocks framework as the foundation for new on-chain actively managed products, making Franklin Templeton's investment strategies available to institutions and retail investors in specific jurisdictions. This positions Kraken as a leading venue for on-chain traditional asset exposure outside of dedicated RWA platforms.

Franklin Templeton has been advancing its crypto footprint through the acquisition of 250 Digital and the expansion of its Franklin Crypto division, adding research, portfolio management, and distribution capabilities that complement its existing tokenized fund products. This deal is a significant step in building a vertically integrated crypto and tokenization business for the firm.