UOB and HSBC Complete Live Tokenised Deposit Transfers on Swift's Shared Ledger

UOB and HSBC have completed live cross-border transactions denominated in Hong Kong dollars on Swift’s blockchain-based shared ledger, making UOB the first Singapore-headquartered bank to execute live transactions on the platform. The milestone follows Swift’s July 2026 announcement that its ledger was ready for initial use, with 17 banks across six continents preparing to run live transactions using tokenised deposits.

UOB is now preparing to extend its participation to Singapore dollar and US dollar transactions in September 2026, bringing additional partner banks into the fold. Those domestic transactions are intended to generate operational insight into the viability of round-the-clock interbank payments on shared-ledger infrastructure, which sits alongside rather than displacing existing payment networks.

For operators watching the tokenised deposit space, the significance here is that this is not a proof-of-concept or sandbox exercise: value has moved between named institutions in production. Swift’s ledger enables real-time obligation matching and netting across participants, which reduces friction in cross-bank digital money transfers and opens a path toward always-on liquidity management across financial hubs. UOB’s ASEAN network positioning and the planned multi-currency expansion suggest the platform’s next test will be whether it can handle the currency and timezone complexity that defines regional treasury operations.