rewrite this title Citi Sees First Bank Goes Live with its Clearing and Token Services Solution – Finovate

Siam Commercial Bank is the first financial institution to go live with Citi’s integrated 24/7 USD Clearing and Citi Token Services offering.

The solution uses tokenized deposits on a private permissioned blockchain to support near real-time cross-border USD payments around the clock.

The launch shows how banks are combining distributed ledger technology with traditional banking infrastructure to reduce payment delays without relying on public blockchains or stablecoins.

Citi announced that Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) has become the first financial institution to go live with Citi’s 24/7 USD Clearing and Citi Token Services. The integration enables near real-time, 24/7 cross-border US dollar payments for SCB’s corporate and institutional clients.

Adopting Citi’s 24/7 USD Clearing with Citi Token Services will help SCB reduce the friction that has historically limited clients’ global payment operations. Traditionally, cross-border USD payments have been constrained by banking hours, weekends, and holidays, creating delays for companies operating across time zones. Offering near real-time settlement around the clock will give corporate clients greater flexibility in managing liquidity, cash flow, and making time-sensitive international payments.

Citi Token Services leverages a private permissioned blockchain that operates within the traditional, regulated banking system. The new service allows the bank to tokenize deposits held within Citi’s global network. When integrated with Citi’s 24/7 USD Clearing solution, which connects over 300 financial institutions across more than 50 geographies, the service creates an always-on payment rail that bridges Citi and non-Citi accounts across borders.

“At SCB, we continuously invest in innovative capabilities that help our corporate and institutional clients operate more efficiently in an increasingly global and connected business environment,” said Siam Commercial Bank Head of Transaction Banking Thanawatn Kittisuwan. “Through our collaboration with Citi, we are the first bank in Thailand to leverage tokenization to enhance cross-border USD capabilities, helping our clients simplify operational constraints and conduct their international business activities with greater flexibility.”

Demonstrating the utility of the always-on nature of the new system, SCB client Phillip Securities Thailand used Citi’s enhanced 24/7 USD Clearing capabilities and Citi Token Services to transfer US dollars from a Citi London account of a subsidiary to the beneficiary account with SCB in Thailand over the 4th of July weekend, a federal holiday in the US. The transfer marked SCB’s first transaction with the new solution.

For Citi, this partnership is an example of the firm’s effort to modernize cross-border payments by combining tokenization with its existing, traditional banking network instead of using public blockchain infrastructure or stablecoins. Citi is one of many financial institutions that are seeking to use distributed ledger technology to improve the speed and availability of traditional banking services while staying within existing regulatory frameworks.

“Our enhanced 24/7 USD Clearing solution integrated with Citi Token Services is an industry-first that bridges traditional and digital rails to expand our suite of always-on client solutions,” said Citi Asia South Head of Services Mridula Iyer. “It furthers our ‘network of networks’ approach as we build capabilities that are interoperable so that they are multi-bank, multi-market and multi-network. This gives our clients the optionality they need, now and for the future, as the global financial infrastructure continues to rapidly evolve.”

Photo by Tom Fisk

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