DBS and Citi Settle 24/7 Cross-Border Dollar Payment on SWIFT’s Ledger

What it used to take up to two business days was settled for minutes during the weekend. DBS and Citi settled a US dollar cross-border payment between Singapore and New York on September 5 using tokenized deposits on SWIFT’s shared ledger, clearing the transfer in minutes over a weekend when a conventional payment can take up to two business days. The banks used tokenized deposits, commercial-bank money issued on a blockchain, with SWIFT’s ledger acting as an orchestration layer that matched and netted the obligations between the two institutions before final settlement ran through existing payment rails. “In a global digital economy that never sleeps, businesses need to move money more quickly and efficiently across borders to stay competitive,” said Rachel Chew, Group Chief Operating Officer and Co-Head of Digital Assets, Global Transaction Services at DBS. DBS Builds Out Tokenized Rails DBS, Southeast Asia’s largest bank, launched DBS Token Services in 2024 and is the only Asian-headquartered bank in the 12-member core design group behind SWIFT’s ledger. It also runs DBS Treasury Tokens, a permissioned blockchain for corporate treasury and liquidity management, and has teamed wi...