Payward, the parent of the Kraken exchange, and Singapore Gulf Bank have struck a deal to give institutional clients round-the-clock settlement. The pitch is simple: digital asset markets trade every hour, so the money behind them should move every hour too.
The 24/7 settlement partnership is small at launch. But it targets a large, long-standing friction.
The problem: markets never close, banks do
Settlement between banks and trading venues has historically run on banking business days, with fixed cut-off times. Digital asset markets do not.
The mismatch — sometimes called the weekend problem — has real costs. Firms must pre-fund accounts at exchanges and banking partners so they can keep serving clients while banks are shut. Treasury teams routinely over-allocate liquidity by 20% to 30% just to cover weekends.
Instant retail rails like FedNow and Europe’s TIPS run around the clock, but wholesale, cross-border, high-value settlement remains largely tied to banking hours. That is the gap the new partnership targets.
What Payward and SGB are doing
Payward has integrated SGB Net, Singapore Gulf Bank’s real-time multi-currency clearing network. Institutional clients of both firms can now settle instantly, at any hour.
The offering starts with US dollar transactions for a select number of clients. The firms say it is available in specific jurisdictions only, with plans to widen it over time.
SGB will also onboard Kraken Prime, Payward’s prime brokerage, for digital asset liquidity, and will use Payward’s markets to price trades for its customers.
Who Singapore Gulf Bank is
SGB is a fully licensed digital bank regulated by the Central Bank of Bahrain, founded in 2024 in Manama. It is backed by Whampoa Group, a Singapore investment holding linked to OCBC’s founding Lee family, and by Mumtalakat, Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund.
It has moved quickly. SGB launched its clearing network, SGB Net, in May 2025; added stablecoin settlement in February 2026; opened a J.P. Morgan correspondent account and adopted 365-day USD clearing in January; and partnered with Standard Chartered in May.
The numbers have scaled fast. SGB reported over US$4 billion in deposits and US$12 billion in transaction volume in 2025, including US$6 billion through SGB Net. In February it said SGB Net processed more than US$2 billion a month; the October release puts that above US$20 billion.
The wider 24/7 settlement race
Payward and SGB are not alone. Western Alliance Bank launched WA VenueX in July 2026, a 24/7 USD settlement network for institutional digital asset firms. It is already processing billions. Jiko runs a T-bill-backed 24/7 USD network. ClearBank offers “Digital Asset Rails” to EU-regulated institutions.
At the infrastructure level, the ECB launched Pontes in September 2026. It settles wholesale tokenised-asset trades in central bank money, with longer, potentially round-the-clock hours planned. That same month, DBS and Citi completed a weekend USD payment between Singapore and the US. It used tokenised deposits and settled in minutes.
Payward’s bigger bet
The SGB deal is one piece of a larger plan. Payward, Kraken’s Wyoming-based parent, is positioning itself as unified financial infrastructure. It spans trading, banking, asset management and institutional services on shared rails. The company has spent billions on acquisitions and is pursuing banking capabilities in the US and Europe.
It signed a similar arrangement with SoFi in September 2026, giving eligible Kraken clients access to SoFi’s 24/7 USD network. The strategy is clear: whichever regulated bank it connects, Payward wants its clients’ cash to move as fast as the assets they trade.
What to watch
Three things will show whether this is infrastructure or a marketing line. Whether the settlement offering moves beyond USD and a select client list. Whether SGB’s volume keeps compounding — its monthly figure has already jumped tenfold in eight months. And whether the rivals, from Western Alliance to the ECB, close the same gap faster.
Markets that never close are forcing banks to open all hours. The race is now about who builds the rails first.
Editor’s Note
Sources: Payward‘s release of 4–5 October 2026; Singapore Gulf Bank’s own announcements and The Business Times; and CoinDesk and other coverage of Payward’s build-out. Independent analysis of 24/7 settlement came from Western Alliance Bank, Jiko, ClearBank, the ECB and the DBS–Citi tokenised-deposit pilot. The settlement offering’s scope and the SGB Net volume figure are as stated by the companies; SGB Net’s monthly volume has risen sharply from earlier disclosures. TechRecast has not independently verified them. This article is not investment advice.