DBS, OCBC and UOB complete first interbank tokenised deposit payments on Swift Ledger

DBS, OCBC and UOB have executed live Singapore dollar interbank payments using tokenised deposits on Swift’s blockchain-based ledger, the first time all three institutions have settled tokenised deposit transactions between one another on a domestic basis. The same banks had already completed cross-border transactions on the Swift Ledger in the weeks prior; the domestic leg is what is new.

The significance of this milestone lies in what it resolves: most tokenised deposit platforms today are confined to a single bank’s client base, meaning a corporate at DBS cannot make a tokenised payment to a UOB counterparty. Domestic interoperability collapses that constraint and, on this reading, positions Swift’s ledger as Singapore’s de facto settlement layer for tokenised deposits rather than a bank-specific or purely cross-border tool.

Singapore is not alone in pursuing this architecture. The Clearing House in the United States is building a tokenised deposit network for its member banks, the UK’s GBTD project links its six largest banks via API-based orchestration, and the Commercial Bank Money Token initiative in Germany and the European Union uses UDPN, a distributed ledger technology orchestration network. What distinguishes the Singapore outcome is that it arrived through Swift’s existing infrastructure rather than a purpose-built domestic scheme, which carries its own implications for how quickly other Swift-connected markets might replicate the model.