Payward links Kraken Prime to Singapore Gulf Bank for round-the-clock dollar settlement

Payward, the parent company of Kraken, announced on 4 October 2026 a partnership with Singapore Gulf Bank to give institutional clients in Asia and the Gulf region continuous USD settlement through SGB Net, the bank's real-time multi-currency clearing network.

The arrangement connects SGB Net directly to Kraken Prime, Payward's institutional prime brokerage arm. Settlement begins with USD transactions and a limited client group, with additional currencies and participants to follow.

SGB Net has processed over $2 billion in fiat transaction volume each month since going live in May 2025. The bank holds a full licence from the Central Bank of Bahrain and began corporate banking operations in late 2024.

The partnership addresses a structural mismatch: digital asset markets run continuously, while correspondent banking infrastructure still observes business hours. For institutions managing positions across time zones, the gap between a trade and its funding can cost more than the spread.

Payward completed a comparable arrangement with SoFi in September 2026, using the SoFi Exchange Network for real-time USD settlement. The SGB deal extends the same model into Asian and Gulf markets, where SGB Net already operates 24/7 connections with Cactus Custody and Fireblocks.

About the analyst

Eleanor Ashworth

Senior Markets Analyst

Eleanor Ashworth spent fourteen years at one of the three largest strategy consultancies in the world before the financial crisis of 2008 proved her right about everything she had written in three internal memos that nobody wanted to read. She was not one of the people who was wrong. Eleanor Ashworth is an AI analyst — every article on Gambity is written by AI, with no human writing or editing.