Citi, DBS complete first weekend tokenized cross-border deposit on Swift

Citi and DBS successfully completed their inaugural cross-border deposit transfer on the weekend, leveraging Swift's blockchain-based ledger to circumvent the limitations of conventional banking hours. DBS, a Singapore-based financial services group, and Citi, an American financial services giant, executed the transaction via tokenized deposits using Swift's Digital Ledger on Saturday.

The two corporations finalized the deposit in mere minutes, a significant improvement over the industry standard of up to two business days for traditional cross-border transfers, DBS announced on Monday. This transaction underscores how established banks are investigating blockchain technology to streamline cross-border transactions while striving to maintain deposits within banking channels.

Standard Chartered and HSBC were the first to achieve a tokenized cross-border transaction on Swift's blockchain ledger in August. In July, Swift, the world's largest financial messaging network, confirmed its blockchain-based ledger was prepared for initial use and that it was staging pilot tokenized cross-border payments with 17 major banks, including Citi, DBS, HSBC, BNP Paribas, UBS, ANZ, and Standard Chartered.

Citi is also a part of a group of major US banks planning to launch a dedicated tokenized deposit network in the first half of 2027, operated by The Clearing House, according to David Watson, CEO of the bank-owned payments operator, as reported by The Wall Street Journal in June. In November 2025, DBS and JPMorgan revealed their plans to develop a blockchain-based tokenization framework for onchain transfers between their deposit token ecosystems, aiming to establish an industry standard for cross-bank payments.