Payward Joins Franklin Templeton to Expand Real-World Asset Tokenization
The partnership pairs Franklin Templeton’s roughly $1.74 trillion in assets under management with Payward’s xStocks tokenized equities framework, which has processed more than $30 billion in trading volume since its 2025 launch.
At the center of the deal is a plan to build actively managed investment products directly on blockchain networks, allowing professionally managed strategies from a major traditional asset manager to become programmable and tradeable onchain.
The two companies will also co-design tokenized yield products aimed first at institutional clients and, where regulations permit, Kraken‘s broader user base. The products are designed to emphasize transparency, programmability, and flexibility.
Kraken will integrate Franklin Templeton’s BENJI token suite into its platform for institutional use. BENJI tokens represent shares in the Franklin Onchain U.S. Government Money Fund and related vehicles and can be used as collateral or to generate yield in digital markets.
Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Payward and Kraken, remarked that the collaboration reflects a fundamental shift in how financial products are structured. “What collaborations like this one unlock is a new class of products that wouldn’t have been possible even three years ago: assets that carry the credibility of multi-decade managers and the programmability of digital infrastructure,” Sethi said.
Sandy Kaul, head of digital assets and innovation at Franklin Templeton, stated that the focus is on making onchain assets functional for the full range of market participants.
Kaul explained:
“By expanding the utility of BENJI and exploring new tokenized products, our work with Payward reflects the growing need to serve both digital-native and institutional customers with solutions built for how capital increasingly moves onchain.”
Franklin Templeton has pursued blockchain integration since 2018 and launched FOBXX, the first U.S.-registered mutual fund to record share ownership on a public blockchain, in April 2021. The fund now operates across Stellar, Solana, Base, Polygon, Aptos, Arbitrum, Avalanche, and other networks.
In March 2026, Franklin Templeton partnered with Ondo Finance to tokenize five of its ETFs for onchain distribution and around-the-clock trading via crypto wallets. The following month, the firm launched its Franklin Crypto unit through the acquisition of 250 Digital, a CoinFund spinoff, with part of that transaction settled using BENJI tokens.
Payward’s xStocks framework offers tokenized 1:1 representations of U.S. stocks and ETFs for eligible non-U.S. clients, enabling extended trading hours and DeFi composability, including lending and decentralized exchange trading. The company also announced a partnership with Nasdaq earlier in 2026 to develop specialty equity token designs supporting automated corporate actions, proxy voting, and dividend distribution.
The collaboration highlights a broader industry push toward real-world asset tokenization. Traditional assets gain blockchain-native benefits, including 24/7 availability and composability with decentralized finance protocols, while onchain infrastructure gains access to regulated, institutional-grade products.
Risks disclosed in the announcement include regulatory uncertainty, blockchain security vulnerabilities, pricing and settlement accuracy, and operational factors. Tokenized products are issued and distributed by Payward; Franklin Templeton manages underlying strategies but does not issue or endorse tokenization platforms. The notice disclosed that availability varies by jurisdiction.
Both firms participate in DTCC tokenization working groups, and the partnership positions them as leading integrators of traditional finance and crypto-native infrastructure as institutional demand for onchain products accelerates.
