Kraken parent Payward adds 24/7 dollar settlement through Singapore Gulf Bank's $20 billion-a-month network
Crypto trades every hour of the week, but the cash behind it has not. A new link lets select institutional clients fund and settle in dollars on weekends, and banks are racing to do the same.
Payward, the company behind the Kraken crypto exchange, has integrated Singapore Gulf Bank's real-time clearing network so that select institutional clients can settle eligible digital-asset transactions and fund trading around the clock, CoinDesk reported. Cointelegraph describes the same deal as 24/7 US dollar settlement for institutions in Asia and the Gulf region, citing a company press release.
The gap it closes
Bitcoin, ether and most other tokens trade through weekends and holidays. The cash that pays for them does not: it moves on bank cut-off times and, often, multi-day settlement. Payward's chief commercial officer, Mark Greenberg, told CoinDesk the problem is shared by "exchanges, payment providers, OTC desks and fintechs": "settlement stops when the business day does, while their markets do not."
Under the new link, according to CoinDesk, a client deposits funds with Payward through SGB Net, the Bahrain-regulated bank's network, and can use them immediately. Singapore Gulf Bank also gets access to digital-asset liquidity through Kraken Prime and will use Payward's markets to price customer trades in the coming months, Cointelegraph says.
What we do not know
The service starts with US dollars only, for a select group of clients in eligible Asian and Gulf jurisdictions. Neither outlet reports how many clients are in the first group or any transaction volumes, and the companies did not disclose them. The one scale figure is the network's own: SGB Net, launched in 2025, handles more than $20 billion of fiat transactions a month, according to the bank. That describes the rail, not how much of it Kraken will use. US customers are not part of the rollout as described.
Banks are chasing the same weekend
Cointelegraph lists three comparable efforts: a consortium including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Barclays plans a tokenized deposit network run by The Clearing House in the first half of 2027 to enable 24/7 settlement; Circle and Nomura have reportedly partnered on instant foreign-exchange settlement for companies from 2027; and on September 21 the Bank of Korea unveiled a pilot letting foreign investors settle won transactions outside banking hours. CoinDesk adds that a report last week said BNY is in talks with Payward over a possible tie-up spanning digital assets, custody, trading and payments. That is a report of talks, not an agreement.
The same day, OKX and the NYSE's owner filed for a round-the-clock tokenized stock venue. See our report on OKXICE. Together they point to one theme: the plumbing, not the coins, is what is being rebuilt to run on weekends.
Why a trader should care
A Friday-night price move has historically been hard to act on with dollars that are stuck until Monday. Faster funding shortens that lag for institutions that qualify, and it matters most when crypto moves hard on a weekend. For ordinary traders nothing changes today. Bitcoin was near $85,600 on Coinbase on Monday afternoon; see live crypto prices.
Sources: CoinDesk, October 5, 2026; Cointelegraph, October 5, 2026; Coinbase. This is market information, not investment advice.
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