Wells Fargo Reports Tuesday: Will Its Kraken Crypto Talks…

Wells Fargo reports third-quarter earnings Tuesday morning, and alongside the usual questions about interest income, loan growth and credit, investors have a new one to listen for: whether management says anything about its reported talks with Kraken parent Payward.The bank will release results at approximately 7:00 a.m. ET on October 13 and hold its earnings call at 10:00 a.m. ET, according to Wells Fargo. The call will be analysts' first scheduled opportunity to question management since reports emerged that the $2 trillion-plus bank has discussed using Payward as a liquidity provider for cryptocurrency trading.Those discussions have not produced a publicly announced agreement. Neither Wells Fargo nor Payward has confirmed that a deal will happen, and both declined to comment when the talks were first reported.

Wells Fargo Earnings: What Wall Street Expects Tuesday

The Street is looking for another year-over-year increase in Wells Fargo's earnings, although current estimates differ slightly by data provider.As of October 11, MarketBeat's analyst consensus stood at $1.85 per share on revenue of $22.31 billion. A TradingView estimate published October 6 put expected earnings at $1.84 per share and revenue at $22.29 billion.The comparison is against a quarter in which Wells Fargo earned $1.73 per share on $21.44 billion of revenue a year earlier.The headline numbers, however, are only part of Tuesday's test. Large U.S. bank shares have been under pressure as Treasury yields have risen, forcing investors to weigh the benefit of higher asset yields against higher funding costs and weaker appetite for borrowing and dealmaking.For Wells Fargo specifically, investors will be watching net interest income, deposit costs, loan growth, credit quality and the capital-markets outlook. Recent industry previews have also focused on whether the stronger loan growth Wells Fargo signaled earlier this year can continue as financing costs remain elevated.

What Was Actually Reported About Wells Fargo and Kraken

CoinDesk reported on October 7, citing two people familiar with the private discussions, that Wells Fargo was in talks with Payward about the crypto company supplying liquidity for digital-asset trading.The discussions remain just that: discussions. No product, launch date, supported assets, customer group or commercial terms have been announced.FinanceFeeds covered the original report on October 8 in Wells Fargo Is in Talks With Kraken's Parent to Supply Crypto Trading for a $2.3 Trillion Bank. Tuesday's earnings call matters because it is the first obvious forum in which analysts can ask Wells Fargo management directly about the report.Management may still decline to discuss private negotiations. But even a broader answer about whether Wells Fargo wants to offer direct crypto trading, and to which customers, would add information that is currently missing.

How a Wells Fargo-Payward Liquidity Model Could Work

A liquidity-provider arrangement would not necessarily mean Wells Fargo was building its own cryptocurrency exchange.Payward Services is the business-to-business arm of Kraken's parent company. It offers infrastructure to banks, brokerages, exchanges, asset managers and other financial firms that want access to digital-asset markets without assembling every piece of the trading stack internally.In a potential Wells Fargo arrangement, Payward could supply pricing, liquidity and execution behind the bank's customer-facing service. Wells Fargo could therefore control the client relationship while relying on crypto-native infrastructure for the underlying market access.The exact model remains unknown because neither party has confirmed the reported negotiations.

Wells Fargo Already Has a Payward Connection Through Nasdaq

The reported talks did not emerge from a completely new relationship.On September 10, Nasdaq Ventures agreed to invest $100 million in Payward as the companies expanded their work on tokenized equities, market surveillance and always-on financial infrastructure.Wells Fargo served as Nasdaq's exclusive capital-markets adviser on that transaction. FinanceFeeds covered the investment in Nasdaq Invests $100M in Kraken Parent Payward to Advance Tokenized Equities.Payward is also reportedly holding separate discussions with BNY over a potentially broader relationship spanning crypto products, custody, wealth management, trading, payments and infrastructure. Those talks, like the Wells Fargo discussions, have not resulted in a publicly confirmed agreement.At the same time, Payward is not rushing toward a public listing. Reports in September said the Kraken parent's U.S. IPO is now unlikely before the second quarter of 2027 at the earliest. FinanceFeeds covered that revised timetable in Kraken Parent Payward Delays IPO to Q2 2027 at the Earliest.

Three Crypto Questions to Listen for on the Wells Fargo Call

The first question is the most direct: is Wells Fargo actively evaluating Payward or another outside provider for crypto liquidity and execution?The second is about the customer. If Wells Fargo wants to expand digital-asset trading, is the target its wealth-management clients, institutional customers, or a broader retail banking audience? The economics and regulatory implications differ substantially between those groups.The third is whether management sees crypto liquidity as a standalone product or part of a wider digital-asset infrastructure strategy encompassing tokenized securities, stablecoins, custody and payments.None of those outcomes should be assumed before Tuesday. The reported Payward discussions may never result in an agreement, and Wells Fargo may choose not to address them on the earnings call at all.But after the October 7 report, the 10:00 a.m. call is the first scheduled opportunity for analysts to move the Wells Fargo-Kraken story beyond anonymous-source reporting. That makes what management says—or declines to say—one of the less conventional things worth listening for when the bank reports Tuesday.