Payward, the parent company of crypto exchange Kraken, has connected to Singapore Gulf Bank's SGB Net clearing network, giving selected institutional clients in Asia and the Gulf round-the-clock access to US-dollar funding. The link, announced in a release dated October 5, lets participating clients deposit cash with Payward and deploy it immediately, at any hour, rather than waiting for banking hours to clear funds.
The service is live now, but only for an initial set of clients and only in US dollars. Neither company named the participating clients or listed which jurisdictions qualify, so the practical reach of the rollout isn't yet public.
What SGB Net actually does
SGB Net launched on May 1, 2025, as a clearing system built for always-on settlement. Payward is plugging into that existing infrastructure rather than building its own. For institutional traders, the appeal is simple: cash sitting in a traditional bank account can take hours or days to become usable on an exchange, and weekends are a dead zone. A direct connection to a clearing network that never closes removes that gap.
The live connection lets participating institutions move their dollars into Payward and put them to work right away. That matters most for firms trading across time zones, where a Friday afternoon deposit in New York is already Saturday in Singapore.
A second piece: pricing digital asset trades
The partnership isn't just about moving money in. Under a separate planned component, Singapore Gulf Bank intends to use Payward's markets to price digital asset trades for its own customers. The bank would source liquidity through Kraken Prime, Payward's institutional trading arm.
That pricing arrangement has a stated horizon of the coming months. It's a distinct piece of the deal from the funding link, which is already live. The two companies are effectively splitting the work: Payward handles the plumbing that gets dollars in and out at speed, while Kraken Prime would supply the market data and liquidity that SGB needs to quote digital asset trades to its banking clients.
What's missing from the announcement
Plenty, if you're trying to figure out whether you qualify. The release doesn't name a single participating client. It doesn't list eligible countries, though it says clients in Asia and the Gulf are the target. It doesn't say how many institutions are live on the connection today, or what volume has moved through it.
Payward and SGB say they intend to add more clients and currencies over time. No exact expansion date is given, and the wider funding rollout beyond the initial cohort remains undated. The pricing side is the only part with a rough timeline attached — the coming months — and even that is vague.
Why banks and crypto firms keep inking these deals
Traditional correspondent banking moves slowly, and crypto firms have spent years working around the mismatch between 24/7 markets and 9-to-5 settlement. Linking a crypto exchange's custody and trading infrastructure directly to a bank's clearing network is one way to close that gap without either side having to build the other's specialty from scratch.
Singapore Gulf Bank gets access to Kraken Prime's liquidity and Payward's market pricing for its customers. Payward gets a regulated banking rail in a region where institutional crypto demand has been growing. Neither company is committing to a full public rollout yet, which suggests the arrangement is still being tested with a limited set of counterparties.
The next concrete checkpoint is the pricing component: SGB's use of Payward markets for digital asset trade pricing is slated for the coming months. Until then, the funding link stays confined to initial clients and US dollars, with no date set for when that circle widens.
