The company behind Kraken is connecting bank funding more closely to crypto’s continuous trading hours. The initial service covers US dollars for a limited group of institutional clients.
Payward, the company behind Kraken, has integrated Singapore Gulf Bank’s real-time clearing network, SGB Net. The firms’ October 5 announcement says the connection enables select institutional clients in Asia and the Gulf to settle dollar transactions at any hour. Additional currencies and a wider group of clients are planned for later stages.
Funding beyond the banking day
Crypto markets remain open over the weekend, but moving the bank money needed to fund a trade does not always follow the same timetable. Payward’s announcement identifies bank cut-off times and settlement delays that can stretch into days as the problem the integration addresses.
The connection lets SGB clients deposit funds with Payward and use them without waiting for the next banking session. This is a change to cash movement and settlement between a bank and a trading platform, rather than the listing of a new crypto asset. It brings the funding side of a trade closer to the market’s continuous operating hours.
“Settlement stops when the business day does”
Dollars first, with limited access
The bank’s release limits the initial offering to US dollar transactions for a select number of institutional clients. It does not announce access for every Kraken account. A full country-by-country eligibility list, client admission criteria and a fee schedule specific to this integration are not set out in the release. The fees and access conditions of Kraken Pro, its retail trading interface, should be assessed separately from this institutional connection.
Round-the-clock service does not mean universal access. The integration covers eligible institutions in selected jurisdictions. More currencies and broader client access are planned, rather than announced as completed steps.
A second part of the partnership will give SGB an additional source of digital asset liquidity through Kraken Prime. Over the coming months, the bank plans to draw on Payward’s markets to price trades for its own customers. Moving cash and obtaining liquidity for trading are two complementary parts of the arrangement.
What does the $20 billion figure measure?
The firms say SGB Net, launched in 2025, now handles more than $20 billion in fiat transactions each month. That is a figure for the entire network. It should not be read as new volume generated by the Payward connection, revenue or customer deposits. No separate volume figure for the partnership was disclosed.
Despite its name, Singapore Gulf Bank is licensed and regulated by the Central Bank of Bahrain. Its backers include Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat and Singapore-based Whampoa Group. The new agreement connects that banking network with Kraken’s institutional trading infrastructure.
Payward previously outlined plans to acquire a European bank. The SGB connection is a separate service partnership with an existing banking network, rather than an acquisition announcement.
