The service lets Ant International move liquidity between group entities beyond conventional banking hours, using OCBC’s blockchain capabilities and WhaleRTP.
OCBC and Ant International have launched a tokenised deposit service for round-the-clock transfers between Singapore and Malaysia. Announced on October 7, the solution supports treasury transactions between Ant International’s group entities, initially using Singapore-dollar and U.S.-dollar deposits.
According to OCBC’s announcement, the aim is to let group companies move liquidity across borders beyond conventional banking hours. The service connects the bank’s blockchain capabilities with WhaleRTP, Ant International’s wholesale settlement and treasury platform.
Bank deposits on a different settlement system
Tokenised deposits are digital representations of commercial bank deposits on a distributed ledger. The structure described in this announcement focuses on moving bank money between corporate entities, rather than issuing a new cryptocurrency.
Conventional cross-border cash movements can be held up by batch processing, operating hours and currency or settlement cut-off times. The new service is intended to support near real-time settlement of intra-group treasury transactions, at any hour and on any day of the week.
OCBC says blockchain records provide an auditable transaction trail and reduce the need for manual reconciliation. Carmen Chan, the bank’s deputy head of Global Transaction Banking, said businesses would be able to manage liquidity with:
“greater speed, visibility and efficiency.”
The scope is intra-group treasury. The announcement covers SGD and USD deposit movements between Ant International entities. It does not announce a transfer app for all retail customers, nor does it provide transaction fees or measured processing-time comparisons.
Fintech Singapore’s October 7 post on the OCBC–Ant launch
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From the 2024 agreement to a live service
The companies’ work on this corridor predates the launch. A memorandum announced on November 6, 2024 set out plans to explore continuous cross-border payments between Singapore and Malaysia through the Whale platform. The new development is the launch of a service addressing that aim, together with its initial currency scope.
OCBC also pointed to separate infrastructure work in September 2026, when it completed a cross-border U.S.-dollar tokenised deposit transaction with Citibank on Swift’s ledger. Singapore-dollar transactions with two other local banks took place that same month.
For technical context, the official Bettr by Ant International discussion below features Kelvin Li and Standard Chartered’s Naveen Mallela on tokenised deposits and corporate treasury. Published on YouTube on October 2, 2026, it is an industry discussion published before today’s OCBC announcement.
