Payward's acquisition of Hong Kong-based Reap Technologies is the clearest signal yet that Kraken is building toward an IPO as a payments company — not a trading platform.
The deal is structured at $600 million in cash and stock, implying a $20 billion valuation for Payward. Reap was processing over $3 billion in monthly transaction volume at the time of acquisition.
Reap connects card networks, banking rails, and stablecoin settlement into a single API. It handles corporate card issuance, cross-border payouts, and B2B treasury operating across Hong Kong, Singapore, Mexico, and emerging corridors in Latin America and Africa. It was already profitable before the deal.
For Payward, this is infrastructure, not speculation. It now holds EU and UK electronic money licences, a Federal Reserve account through Kraken Financial — the first digital asset bank to get one — and with Reap, a full card-issuance stack across Asia.
"Stablecoins are the settlement substrate. AI agents are the new participants. Reap is the payments layer for what comes next."
Arjun Sethi, co-CEO, Payward
The deal doesn't sit alone. Stripe paid $1.1B for Bridge in February 2025. Mastercard paid $1.8B for BVNK in March 2026 the largest stablecoin infrastructure acquisition on record. The buyers aren't chasing crypto hype. They're acquiring regulated, multi-jurisdictional rail operators that took years to license and can't be rebuilt quickly at any price.
Payward has confidentially filed for an IPO. Walking into public markets as a crypto exchange competes on one set of multiples. Walking in as cross-border payments infrastructure with card rails, a Fed account, derivatives clearing, and stablecoin settlement across three continents competes on an entirely different one.
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