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 with Ripple and Franklin Templeton to launch tokenized repo markets on the XRP Ledger, listing Franklin’s sgBENJI money market token and Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin on DBS Digital Exchange.
Asia’s outbound cross-border payments are projected to reach $24 trillion by 2033, up from $13.5 trillion in 2025, according to figures cited in the announcement, which also said half of finance leaders are exploring blockchain-based tools for liquidity and foreign exchange management.
“This milestone with DBS on Swift’s ledger reflects Citi’s commitment to building financial infrastructure for our clients and partners that is always-on, interoperable and fit for the future,” noted Mridula Iyer, Head of Services for Asia South at Citi.
Banks Line Up on Swift’s Ledger
The DBS-Citi payment follows the first live tokenized deposit transfer on the network, which HSBC and Standard Chartered ran on August 19.
“With our new ledger capability, we’re extending the trust and stability of established finance into the frontiers of digital money,” said Thierry Chilosi, Chief Business Officer at Swift. Seventeen banks from six continents, among them ANZ, BNP Paribas, MUFG, UBS and Wells Fargo, are piloting live transactions on the ledger, which Swift announced in September 2025 and had Consensys prototype.
Bank of America’s Mark Monaco has said clients are not “beating down the door” for tokenized deposits, though interest is growing. A competing US network, The Bridge, is being built by The Clearing House with JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo for the first half of 2027 and is open to all US banks.
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