Kraken operator Payward adds 24-7 dollar settlement with Singapore Gulf Bank

Payward, the company behind crypto exchange Kraken, has integrated Singapore Gulf Bank's real-time clearing network to settle institutional digital-asset trades around the clock, the companies said in an Oct. 4 announcement covered by CoinDesk. The service runs on SGB Net and makes deposited funds immediately available for trading. Cointelegraph reported that the rollout starts with US dollars for a select group of clients.

The pairing joins an exchange operator with a Bahrain-regulated bank. Payward operates Kraken and is expanding into infrastructure that links trading, custody, payments and banking, while Singapore Gulf Bank provides the fiat clearing leg, according to the CoinDesk account. The bank's network clears eligible transfers in real time rather than in batches tied to the business day. Clients can fund a Payward account and use the balance at once, including outside banking hours.

The target user is institutional rather than retail. Exchanges, over-the-counter desks, payment providers and financial technology firms are the named groups, Payward said in the announcement. Those firms trade through weekends and holidays, when ordinary bank transfers often pause. The service begins with a limited set of clients in eligible jurisdictions across Asia and the Gulf region. The firms did not disclose the number of first users or the volumes they expect.

Only US dollars are supported at the start. The companies plan to add more clients and more currencies over time, Cointelegraph wrote in its summary of the release. No timetable for the next currency was given. The phased start keeps the first group narrow while the two sides test operations across borders and time zones.

The core problem is a timing gap between crypto markets and bank ledgers. Digital assets change hands at all hours, while cash funding those trades can face cut-off times and multi-day settlement, Payward chief commercial officer Mark Greenberg explained. A desk that sells coins on a Saturday night may wait until Monday for dollars to land. SGB Net lets a client deposit with Payward and draw on the funds at once, so trading does not pause for the next banking day.

Greenberg put the same point in market terms. He said exchanges, payment providers, over-the-counter desks and financial technology firms all hit one banking limit, since settlement stops when the business day ends while their markets do not, in remarks quoted in the announcement coverage. The bank link is meant to keep cash and crypto legs in step. For a trading firm, that means fewer idle balances held back for weekends.

The arrangement runs in both directions. Singapore Gulf Bank gains access to digital-asset liquidity through Kraken Prime, Payward's prime brokerage service, Cointelegraph noted. The bank will use Payward markets to price customer trades in the coming months, according to the release summary. That gives bank clients a path from fiat deposits into quoted crypto execution without waiting for a separate liquidity deal.

SGB Net itself is not new. The network launched in 2025 and now processes more than 20 billion dollars in fiat transactions each month, according to the bank, in figures cited in the announcement coverage. The Payward link plugs institutional crypto settlement into that existing flow. The bank keeps its regulated status while adding a 24-hour crypto use case on top of current payment traffic.

Payward framed the move as part of a wider infrastructure push beyond the Kraken exchange. The company is building links across trading, custody, payments and banking, a direction also seen in its reported talks with BNY over custody, trading and payments work, CoinDesk described in related coverage. The Singapore Gulf Bank deal adds the settlement piece for dollars. It does not by itself change custody or exchange fees, and the release did not specify commercial terms.

Other banks are testing similar extensions of settlement hours. A group including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Barclays plans a tokenized deposit network run by The Clearing House in the first half of 2027 for round-the-clock settlement, while Circle and Nomura have discussed instant foreign-exchange settlement from 2027, in context accompanying the announcement. In South Korea, the central bank outlined a pilot to let foreign investors settle won trades outside regular hours. The Payward and Singapore Gulf Bank service is live for its first users rather than set for a future year.

What remains undisclosed is as specific as what was announced. The firms did not name the first clients, the eligible jurisdictions by name, the fees for instant settlement or the transaction volumes covered at launch. They also did not say which currency comes next or when Kraken Prime pricing for the bank's customer trades will begin beyond the coming months, as reflected in the announcement summaries. For now the verified facts are the parties, the SGB Net rail, dollar-only start, Asia and Gulf first group and the Prime liquidity return leg.