TL;DR
- Payward, the company behind Kraken, partnered with Singapore Gulf Bank to offer 24/7 dollar settlement.
- The service will feature dollar transactions for select institutional clients in Asia and the Gulf region, with no banking cutoffs.
- SGB Net, launched in 2025, processes over $20 billion in monthly fiat transactions and plans to add more currencies and clients.
Payward, the financial infrastructure company behind the Kraken exchange, integrated the real-time clearing network of Singapore Gulf Bank to allow select institutional clients to settle digital asset transactions and fund operations around the clock, including on non-business days. The agreement was announced on Sunday.
The service will initially feature dollar transactions for a limited group of clients in eligible jurisdictions across Asia and the Gulf region.
Mark Greenberg, Chief Commercial Officer of Payward, spoke about the structural problem that motivated the partnership: while digital assets operate without interruption throughout the weekend and the rest of the week, the cash that funds those operations remains subject to banking hours and settlement processes that can stretch over several days. With SGB Net, clients can deposit funds with Payward and use them immediately.
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“Exchanges, payment providers, OTC desks and fintechs all run into the same banking constraint: settlement stops when the business day ends, but their markets do not,” Greenberg stated. The integration with SGB Net is aimed directly at eliminating that operational limitation.
Payward aims to expand beyond Kraken’s exchange business into the infrastructure that connects trading, custody, payments and banking. The week prior to the announcement, specialized outlets reported that BNY is in talks with the firm about a possible partnership that would cover digital assets, custody, operations and payments.
For Singapore Gulf Bank, connecting settlement with Kraken Prime’s liquidity means that institutional clients will be able to move capital and operate without waiting for the next business day. Both firms did not disclose the number of clients included in the initial rollout or the transaction volumes involved, though they indicated that they plan to add new currencies and users over time.
