Kraken Parent Payward Partners Singapore Gulf Bank for 24/7 Dollar Settlement
The arrangement extends round-the-clock US dollar clearing to institutional clients in Asia and the Gulf, a region where dollar settlement has historically been constrained by US banking hours.
Payward, Inc., the parent company of US-registered crypto exchange Kraken, has entered a partnership with Singapore Gulf Bank (SGB) to enable continuous, around-the-clock US dollar settlement for select institutional clients in Asia and the Gulf region, according to a report published October 5, 2026 by CoinTelegraph.
The settlement infrastructure will operate through SGB's proprietary network, called SGB Net, which the bank describes as a platform for instant dollar transactions. Under the arrangement, qualifying institutional counterparties in the two regions will be able to clear US dollar positions at any hour, including outside conventional US banking windows.
The practical significance centers on time-zone friction. Traditional US dollar correspondent banking operates during US business hours, meaning institutions in Singapore, the Gulf Cooperation Council states, and surrounding markets face settlement delays when transacting during their local business day. SGB Net is designed to remove that constraint by maintaining a continuously available dollar clearing pathway.
Payward has not disclosed which specific institutions in Asia or the Gulf will have access to the service at launch. The company has also not specified the transaction volume capacity of the SGB Net network or the fee structure applicable to institutional users. Those details, if made public, would appear in future commercial filings or product announcements from either Payward or Singapore Gulf Bank.
Kraken is one of the largest crypto exchanges by US trading volume. The exchange reported serving millions of clients globally in prior public disclosures, though precise current user figures were not included in the CoinTelegraph report. Payward's corporate structure separates the US-facing exchange operations from international expansion activities, a distinction relevant to US regulatory oversight by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
For US investors, the relevance of the partnership lies in dollar liquidity flows. Expanding the hours during which dollar-denominated crypto settlements can occur outside the US may affect price continuity and arbitrage dynamics on US-listed markets, particularly during Asian and Gulf trading sessions when dollar access has historically been thinner.
Singapore Gulf Bank holds a digital bank license in Singapore, issued by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS). Its SGB Net platform has not, as of the date of this article, been reviewed or endorsed by any US federal banking regulator. The bank is not a member of the US Federal Reserve's FedNow system or the Clearing House's RTP network.
The partnership does not require Payward to obtain new regulatory approvals in the United States, because the settlement activity is routed through a foreign-licensed institution for non-US clients. Whether any portion of the dollar flows would pass through US correspondent banks, which would bring them under US Bank Secrecy Act oversight, has not been disclosed by either party.
The announcement arrives as the broader crypto industry continues to negotiate the boundary between crypto-native settlement infrastructure and conventional bank-based dollar clearing. The Federal Reserve's March 2023 guidance on crypto-asset risks to banking organizations, issued jointly with the FDIC and OCC, established that US banks must apply heightened scrutiny to crypto-related correspondent relationships, a standard that would apply if any US bank serves as a backstop to SGB Net flows.
What remains unknown is the daily dollar volume Payward expects to route through SGB Net, the identity of the initial institutional participants, and whether any US-chartered bank is involved in the backend clearing chain. Payward has not filed a current Form 8-K or equivalent US disclosure on the arrangement, as it is not a publicly traded company. Further detail would likely emerge through Singapore Exchange filings if SGB is or becomes publicly listed, or through future press releases from either firm.