Payward, the infrastructure platform behind Kraken, and Singapore Gulf Bank announced a partnership on October 4 to bring 24/7 settlement to institutional digital asset markets across Asia and the Gulf region. The deal integrates SGB Net, Singapore Gulf Bank's real-time multi-currency clearing network, directly into Payward's platform, so that institutional clients settle transactions instantly at any hour rather than waiting on fixed banking cut-off times.
SGB has partnered with @Payward to bring 24/7 instant settlement to institutional digital asset markets across Asia and the GCC.
— Singapore Gulf Bank (@SGB_app) October 5, 2026
Through SGB Net, clients can move cash in real time at any hour. SGB is also collaborating with @KrakenPrimeHQ to access liquidity for its digital… pic.twitter.com/rOqJmjt6DT
Why settlement speed has been a persistent gap for crypto institutions
Mark Greenberg, Payward's Chief Commercial Officer, described the core problem this partnership addresses.
"Exchanges, payment providers, OTC desks and fintechs all run into the same banking constraint. Settlement stops when the business day does, while their markets do not," Greenberg said. "SGB has built settlement infrastructure that reflects the future of digital asset banking and payments. Every regulated bank we connect with this way brings us closer to a world where settlement and cross-border payments happen in real time, wherever our clients are."
Traditional bank settlement has historically relied on correspondent banking networks that process transactions in batches during standard business hours, often taking one to several days to finalize cross-border transfers. Crypto markets, by contrast, never close, which creates a structural mismatch: an institutional trader executing a weekend trade on a crypto exchange has had no reliable way to settle the corresponding fiat leg until the next business day opened somewhere in the world. SGB Net's real-time clearing model directly targets that gap, giving Payward's institutional clients a banking rail that actually matches the operating tempo of the markets they trade in.
How Kraken Prime fits into the liquidity side of the deal
Beyond settlement speed, Singapore Gulf Bank will onboard Kraken Prime, Payward's full-service prime brokerage solution, as an additional source of digital asset liquidity. Shawn Chan, SGB's Chief Executive Officer, framed the dual nature of the partnership directly.
"Access to liquidity is only useful if clients can move funds when they need to," Chan said. "By connecting SGB Net with Payward and partnering with Kraken Prime, we are bringing settlement and liquidity closer together, giving clients more flexibility in how they fund and manage their digital asset activity."
Prime brokerage in traditional finance bundles together execution, financing, custody, and reporting services for institutional clients under a single relationship, reducing the operational overhead of managing separate counterparties for each function. Kraken Prime extends that same model to digital assets, and SGB's decision to draw on it for pricing suggests the bank intends to route its own customers' crypto trades through Payward's liquidity pool. That arrangement benefits both sides: SGB gains deep, institutional-grade liquidity without building it from scratch, while Payward gains a regulated banking partner distributing its pricing to a new client base across the Gulf and Asia.
The scale SGB Net has already reached and who backs the bank
Singapore Gulf Bank launched SGB Net in 2025 specifically for digital asset businesses with growing operational needs, and the network has since scaled to process more than $20 billion in fiat transactions each month, as they mentioned in their announcement. SGB is backed by Mumtalakat, Bahrain's sovereign wealth fund, and Singapore's Whampoa Group, and operates as a fully licensed digital bank regulated by the Central Bank of Bahrain.
Bahrain has positioned itself as a regional financial hub for digital assets over the past several years, with the Central Bank of Bahrain issuing some of the Gulf region's earliest crypto asset regulatory frameworks starting in 2019. A sovereign wealth fund-backed digital bank holding a full Bahraini banking license gives Payward a regulated counterparty with direct access to both Gulf institutional capital and the broader Islamic finance market that has historically operated under distinct compliance requirements. Combined with Whampoa Group's Singapore base, SGB's ownership structure gives it credibility and regulatory standing across two of the partnership's named target regions simultaneously.
Where this fits into Payward's broader banking strategy
The partnership extends Payward Banking, described as the money layer behind the Payward platform that handles deposits, payments, cards, custody, and lending across the company's product suite, which includes Kraken, NinjaTrader, Breakout, xStocks, and CF Benchmarks. Payward said it will continue adding banking partners to broaden its banking services globally as digital asset markets and traditional banking converge further.
The settlement offering initially covers US dollar transactions for a select number of clients, with plans to expand to additional currencies and a wider client base over time.
Gunel Ismayilova
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