Kraken Parent Payward to Offer Retail Access to US IPOs at Offering Price
Summary
- Payward said it plans to offer Kraken users and customers of some partner platforms access to US IPO offering-price investments through xStocks.
- The company said the service will allow retail investors to register interest before a listing and receive tokenized shares at the IPO offering price on the day trading begins.
- Payward said the service is intended to expand IPO offering-price investment access, previously limited to institutional investors and private banking clients, to retail investors.
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Payward, the parent of US cryptocurrency exchange Kraken, plans to offer retail investors access to US initial public offerings at the offering price.
The Block reported on June 3 that Payward will offer access to US IPOs through its xStocks platform to Kraken users and customers of some partner platforms. The company plans to launch the service in the coming weeks.
The service will allow retail investors to register their interest before a company lists and receive allocations of tokenized shares at the IPO offering price on the listing day. Access to IPO allocations has typically been limited to institutional investors and private banking clients.
Payward says the new service is designed to change a system in which retail investors have had to buy shares only at market prices after trading begins. That has left them missing the initial gains when a stock opens above its offering price.
"Going public should mean being public for everyone," Mark Greenberg, Payward's global head of consumer, said. "For too long, access to IPOs has been treated like a privilege tied to geography and wealth."
He added that retail investors in Medellin, Madrid and Malaysia will now be able to participate in US-listed IPOs in a way similar to institutional investors.
