Key Points

• Citi and DBS completed their first weekend tokenized cross-border payment between Singapore and the US using the Swift Digital Ledger.
• The transaction was finalized within minutes, compared with as long as two business days for some traditional cross-border transfers.
• The deal highlights how major banks are using blockchain-based infrastructure to enable 24/7 settlement while keeping deposits within regulated banking channels.

Citi and DBS Test 24/7 Cross-Border Payments

DBS and Citi have completed their first tokenized cross-border payment between Singapore and the United States during a weekend, demonstrating how blockchain infrastructure could address one of traditional banking’s persistent limitations: restricted operating hours.

The transaction, completed on Saturday, used tokenized deposits through the Swift Digital Ledger. DBS said the payment was finalized within minutes, allowing the banks to bypass the conventional constraints associated with weekend and after-hours cross-border settlement.

Traditional international transfers can take as long as two business days, depending on the payment route and banking schedules. The near-immediate settlement therefore represents a potentially significant improvement for institutions handling time-sensitive international payments.

Tokenized Deposits Keep Banks at the Center

The experiment is notable not simply because blockchain technology was used, but because the transaction relied on tokenized bank deposits.

Rather than moving customers toward an entirely separate cryptocurrency-based payment system, tokenized deposits allow banks to explore blockchain settlement while maintaining deposits within the existing banking ecosystem.

That approach could give financial institutions a way to capture some of the efficiency advantages associated with digital assets without necessarily replacing conventional banking infrastructure.

The weekend transaction also demonstrates why 24/7 blockchain-based settlement is attracting interest from traditional financial institutions. Global commerce increasingly operates continuously, while legacy payment systems can remain constrained by business-day schedules.

Swift Expands Blockchain Infrastructure

The transaction comes as Swift, the world’s largest financial messaging network, accelerates its work on blockchain-based payment infrastructure.

Swift said in July that its blockchain-based ledger was ready for initial use and announced plans to pilot tokenized cross-border payments with 17 major banks.

The participating institutions include Citi and DBS, alongside HSBC, BNP Paribas, UBS, ANZ and Standard Chartered.

Standard Chartered and HSBC had already completed the first live tokenized cross-border transaction on the Swift blockchain ledger in August, underscoring the growing pace of experimentation among global banks.

The progression from pilots toward live transactions suggests that financial institutions are increasingly testing whether distributed-ledger infrastructure can operate at the scale and reliability required for international payments.

Citi Builds a Broader Tokenized Deposit Strategy

Citi is pursuing additional initiatives beyond the Swift ecosystem.

The bank is part of a group of major US financial institutions planning a separate tokenized deposit network expected to launch in the first half of 2027. The network is expected to be operated by The Clearing House and is designed to provide another blockchain-enabled infrastructure for bank deposits and payments.

For Citi, the parallel initiatives indicate that tokenized deposits are increasingly being viewed as a strategic component of future payment infrastructure rather than a limited blockchain experiment.

DBS Continues Interbank Tokenization Work

DBS has also been developing broader infrastructure for blockchain-based bank deposits.

In November 2025, DBS and JPMorgan announced plans to develop a tokenization framework that would enable onchain transfers between their respective deposit-token ecosystems.

The objective was to help establish a common framework for cross-bank payments, addressing one of the key challenges facing institutional blockchain adoption: interoperability between different tokenized deposit systems.

The Citi transaction adds another practical example of banks testing how these systems can function in real-world cross-border payments.

Outlook

The Citi-DBS transaction strengthens the case for tokenized deposits as an institutional payment rail, particularly where traditional banking hours create settlement delays. The ability to complete cross-border transfers over a weekend within minutes could become increasingly valuable as banks seek continuous settlement without abandoning regulated deposit structures. The larger test will be whether Swift and participating institutions can move from individual demonstrations to interoperable, scalable networks capable of handling substantial global payment volumes.