TL;DR:
- DBS and Citi completed the first tokenized cross-border weekend transfer between Singapore and the U.S. using the Swift Digital Ledger.
- The transaction, executed on September 5, 2026, settled in minutes compared to the traditional banking system’s standard of up to two business days.
- Outbound cross-border payments from Asia are projected to reach $24 trillion by 2033, nearly double the volume recorded in 2025.
DBS and Citi executed on Saturday, September 5, 2026 the first tokenized cross-border transfer of a weekend between Singapore and the United States.
The operation was processed using tokenized deposits through the Swift Digital Ledger, the distributed ledger network developed by Swift, and settled in a matter of minutes. Singapore-based bank DBS described the operation as a substantial improvement over the conventional standard for international transfers, which can take up to two business days.
The transaction serves to eliminate one of the historical limitations of the global financial system: the inability to move liquidity outside banking hours and during weekends. For sectors such as e-commerce and digital services, which operate without pauses or borders, the ability to settle payments in real time at any moment represents an enormous structural shift in treasury management and liquidity risk control.
DBS and Citi Redefine Cross-Border Payments
Rachel Chew, Chief Operating Officer and co-head of Digital Assets in Global Transaction Services at DBS, stated that the Swift Digital Ledger is bridging traditional banking infrastructure with emerging digital networks, and noted that the operation demonstrates how tokenized money is advancing toward real-world adoption. Mridula Iyer, Head of Services for South Asia at Citi, noted that processing a live transaction over a weekend confirms that always-on cross-border payments are already an operational reality.
In August, Standard Chartered and HSBC had completed the first tokenized transaction on Swift’s ledger. In July, the financial messaging network had announced that its platform was ready for initial use and that it was preparing pilots with 17 banks, including Citi, DBS, HSBC, BNP Paribas, UBS, ANZ and Standard Chartered.
In November 2025, DBS and JPMorgan had already revealed their plans to develop a blockchain tokenization framework that would enable on-chain transfers between their deposit token ecosystems, with the goal of establishing a new standard.
