SGB opens Solana USDC corridor

Singapore Gulf Bank has launched a USDC mint-and-redeem service on the Solana blockchain, opening a round-the-clock channel for corporate and high-net-worth clients to move between fiat currency and digital dollars directly from their bank accounts as it pushes deeper into cross-border payments and treasury services. The bank said the product is designed to bypass delays tied to correspondent banking and standard settlement windows, offering near-instant conversion and transfer for clients operating across several jurisdictions.

The service went live on April 17 and is being pitched as regulated banking infrastructure rather than a standalone crypto tool. SGB said clients can convert funds at a 1:1 rate between US dollars and USDC, with settlement running 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The lender is positioning the rollout as part of a broader attempt to integrate digital assets into mainstream banking workflows, especially for businesses seeking faster liquidity management, supplier payments and movement of working capital across borders.

Chief executive Shawn Chan said the bank wanted to address a practical problem facing globally active clients: moving money quickly across time zones without being constrained by legacy banking rails. That framing is central to the bank’s strategy. SGB has built its model around serving customers whose activity spans both conventional finance and digital assets, and the USDC launch extends that pitch by offering a direct bridge between bank deposits and blockchain-based settlement.

Despite its name, Singapore Gulf Bank is based in Bahrain and regulated there as a conventional wholesale bank by the Central Bank of Bahrain. The lender is backed by Whampoa Group and Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat. Its location matters because Bahrain has tried to present itself as a regional financial technology hub with a regulatory structure seen as more open than some neighbouring markets to digital-asset experimentation under controlled conditions. That gives SGB a platform to market itself as a bank sitting between Gulf capital, Asian networks and the digital-asset economy.

The decision to use Solana is also notable. USDC has been available on Solana for years, and the network has been marketed by Circle and Solana advocates as a fast, lower-cost blockchain suited to payments and other high-volume financial use cases. For a bank trying to sell speed and continuous settlement, Solana offers a technical story that matches the commercial pitch, even if network choice will matter less to many treasury clients than regulatory clarity, bank-grade controls and reliable redemption into fiat.

SGB’s launch lands at a time when banks, regulators and payment firms are taking a more serious look at stablecoins as financial plumbing rather than speculative instruments. The appeal is clear: tokenised dollars can move at all hours, settle more quickly than many cross-border bank transfers and reduce the friction that comes with multiple intermediaries. Supporters argue that this can improve cash flow management for exporters, digital businesses and firms with fragmented banking relationships. Critics, however, point to familiar concerns around compliance, operational risk, concentration of issuers and the challenge of ensuring that tokenised money remains fully redeemable under stress.

Those tensions are shaping the next phase of competition. SGB is not merely promoting a payments feature; it is trying to establish itself as a regulated gateway where digital-asset clients can also access more traditional financial products. Earlier this month, the bank announced that it had joined BNY’s correspondent banking network and fixed-income brokerage platform, a move aimed at giving clients access to instruments such as money market funds and US Treasury bills. Taken together with the USDC service, the message is that SGB wants to be seen as a full-service institution for clients who move between tokenised dollars, cash management and conventional capital markets.

For now, access remains limited to corporate and high-net-worth customers, which keeps the initial rollout inside a segment better equipped to handle compliance checks, onboarding requirements and larger transaction sizes. Reports tied to the launch indicate the bank plans to broaden availability later, potentially extending the service to individuals after the first institutional phase. That staged approach reflects a wider pattern in digital finance: banks tend to test new rails with professional clients first, where volumes are larger and operational demands can be more tightly managed.