Tokenised payment infrastructure moved closer to operational use as Citi, DBS, FAB, OCBC, BNP Paribas and HSBC completed live Swift-ledger transactions across bank liquidity, cross-border settlement and corporate treasury use cases.

Citi’s UK sanctions case brought correspondent routing and payment-chain screening under closer scrutiny. Elsewhere, large syndicated and multilateral facilities broadened the financing mix, alongside new working-capital structures for suppliers and e-commerce merchants.

Read more on the week’s key developments:

1. Swift ledger moves into live bank and corporate treasury payments

On 2 September, Citi announced that it had completed live US dollar transactions with First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) on Swift’s blockchain-based ledger. Citi said these were the first live US dollar transactions on the ledger in the Middle East and Southeast Asia respectively. BNP Paribas and HSBC disclosed a live corporate treasury payment for Siemens on 4 September, moving funds from the company’s euro account in France to its sterling account in the UK through its existing accounts and instruction channels. On 5 September, DBS and Citi’s New York office completed a separate Singapore-US transaction over a weekend in minutes using tokenised deposits.

Swift provides the orchestration layer while participating banks issue tokenised deposits on their own ledgers and complete final settlement through existing systems. Seventeen banks across six continents were preparing live pilots when Swift declared the ledger ready for initial use in July. The September transactions extend the model across bank-to-bank liquidity, weekend cross-border settlement and a corporate treasury transfer. Siemens’ use of existing accounts and channels removes the need for a treasurer to manage a separate wallet or alter bank mandates to access the ledger.

2. Citi fined GBP 4.7 million by UK sanctions regulator over payment and correspondent controls

The UK’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) imposed a GBP 4.7 million ($6.4 million) penalty on Citibank N.A., London Branch for breaches spanning payment processing, correspondent banking and account restrictions. Citi processed 970 payments worth GBP 19.7 million ($26.6 million) that OFSI considered breaches of UK sanctions. Most occurred between February and November 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, although the case also included transactions in 2025. OFSI found no intent to breach sanctions. A 20% reduction for voluntary disclosure and cooperation and a further 20% settlement discount cut the baseline penalty by 40%.

OFSI found that Citi’s automated processor selected correspondent banks from an internal routing list that was not screened at the time of payment. Payment information was screened before those banks were added, and the completed chain was not screened again before release. OFSI also identified missing Bank Identifier Codes in internal screening entries, a calibration failure involving ‘Sovcomflot’ and ‘PAO Sovcomflot’, delays in restricting accounts and backlogs in manual alert review. For transaction banks, the case shows that sanctions screening must cover routing data and the assembled payment chain, with operational capacity to act on alerts and account restrictions after large designation events.

3. China tightens supplier payment rules for automakers

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and State Administration for Market Regulation published rules on 7 September to tighten automakers’ payment practices. The payment clock starts after delivery and acceptance, while production materials must generally be accepted within three working days or are deemed accepted. Automakers that have made supplier-payment commitments must reflect them in contracts. Small and medium-sized suppliers should be paid within 30 days where possible and no later than 60 days. The rules encourage cash and banker’s acceptances and prohibit automakers from forcing suppliers to take commercial bills, supply-chain notes or other non-cash instruments.

The detailed timing rules close gaps that allowed a nominal 60-day term to stretch through slow acceptance or reconciliation. Limits on compulsory non-cash instruments also protect suppliers from having to absorb discounting costs to turn a note into cash. Faster supplier settlement will shorten receivables cycles, but it may increase short-term funding needs at automakers and their finance companies. Regulators will receive half-year and annual reports, publish third-party assessments and scrutinise companies with large payables or repeated complaints, adding an enforcement mechanism to last year’s voluntary pledges.

4. ByteDance raises $29.6 billion in one of Asia’s largest corporate loans

ByteDance secured a $29.6 billion three-year unsecured syndicated loan from nearly 30 banks, Reuters reported on 4 September. Citi and J.P. Morgan coordinated the financing. The borrower increased the facility from an initial target of $20 billion after it was oversubscribed, drawing lenders from China, the US, Europe and Singapore. Chinese banks supplied more than 60% of the commitments. The loan is formally for general corporate purposes, although Reuters reported that the funding would support projects outside China, including AI infrastructure.

The transaction is among the largest corporate loans completed in Asia this year and almost triples the $10.8 billion facility ByteDance raised in 2024. Its expansion during syndication shows that a small group of global coordinators could assemble substantial unsecured capacity across several banking markets. The concentration of commitments among Chinese lenders also shows where the company’s deepest balance-sheet support sits, even as the syndicate broadened internationally.

5. KB Kookmin brings Kinexys payments to Korean importers and exporters

KB Kookmin Bank has launched an import and export payment service using the Blockchain Deposit Account network operated by Kinexys by J.P. Morgan. J.P. Morgan said on 2 September that KB Kookmin was the first Korean financial institution to use the network for such payments. The service initially supports US dollar remittances through the bank’s Korean branches and Singapore branch across ten markets, including the US, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, India, Thailand, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, South Africa and Korea.

The service places blockchain settlement inside a familiar bank channel and applies it to defined trade corridors where time-zone and business-day gaps can delay exporters’ access to funds. Kinexys reports more than $4 trillion processed since inception and about $7 billion in average daily volume, giving KB Kookmin access to an operating network with established institutional activity. Linking the Korean and Singapore branches also gives the bank a route to serve exporters across ten markets without building a separate settlement network for each corridor.

6. OCBC, Visa and Doxa extend construction finance below the first supplier tier

OCBC, Visa and Doxa have put a deep-tier financing service into live use through the Doxa Connex platform in Singapore. Once a developer or main contractor digitally approves a project claim, eligible subcontractors can receive funds before the invoice due date through OCBC virtual purchasing cards. The service went live in August, with Kimly Construction using it on two projects and selected subcontractors being onboarded. The partners said participants in construction supply chains can otherwise wait as long as 100 days for payment.

Coface’s 2026 survey put the average payment delay in Singapore construction at 85 days, the longest among the sectors covered and well above the national average of 66.3 days. Linking finance to an approved work claim creates an earlier, auditable funding trigger for smaller firms that sit below the main contractor. The structure uses project approval data to carry finance beyond the first supplier tier, where banks often lack a direct relationship or timely evidence that work has been accepted.

7. POSCO secures up to $700 million IDB Invest-led facility for Argentina lithium operations

POSCO Holdings disclosed on 2 September that its Argentine subsidiary had secured a short-term credit facility of up to $700 million for the Sal de Oro lithium project. IDB Invest, which announced the transaction on 27 August, will provide an A-loan of up to $250 million and seek to mobilise as much as $450 million from international financial institutions. The facility will fund working capital during the commissioning and production ramp-up of POSCO Argentina’s lithium hydroxide and lithium carbonate plants.

The A/B loan structure enables IDB Invest to bring other institutional lenders into the financing while limiting its own commitment to $250 million. Funding working capital during commissioning addresses the period when operating expenditure rises before production generates stable cash flow. The transaction also connects a South Korean industrial group’s overseas expansion with multilateral and international financing for Argentina’s higher-value lithium-processing capacity.

8. EBANX cuts internal fund transfers from more than 24 hours to minutes

EBANX has reduced internal cross-border transfers between its own accounts from more than 24 hours to minutes using Kinexys by J.P. Morgan. The payments platform now moves funds daily across time zones with same-day confirmation, replacing a process constrained by intermediary banks, local cut-off times and operating windows. J.P. Morgan published the client deployment on 31 August.

Faster transfers between EBANX accounts can reduce the balances held as timing buffers and give its treasury team earlier confirmation of available cash for liquidity forecasts and reconciliation. Daily use across internal accounts moves the application beyond a one-off test into an operating treasury process. The deployment addresses a specific treasury friction created when internal liquidity moves across time zones but remains subject to intermediary banks and local operating windows.

9. RBA consults on adapting settlement services for tokenised wholesale markets

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) opened a consultation on 3 September on how the Reserve Bank Information and Transfer System (RITS) and Fast Settlement Service could support tokenised assets and private digital money. Responses are due by 30 October. The work follows Project Acacia and sits alongside an RBA and Australian Treasury update that found no clear public-interest case for a retail central bank digital currency at present.

The RBA is examining delivery-versus-payment settlement by synchronising tokenised asset platforms with RITS or the Fast Settlement Service, at-par exchange between conventional deposits and tokenised private money, possible access to central-bank reserves for stablecoin arrangements and tokenised central-bank reserves. These options address the cash leg and liquidity architecture of tokenised markets, not only the asset platform. Synchronisation could connect new venues to existing central-bank money, while reserve access and at-par convertibility would shape how private digital money functions as a wholesale settlement asset.

10. Ping An Digital Bank launches invoice-backed finance for cross-border e-commerce

Ping An Digital Bank (International) has launched a product called Purchase Order Financing for cross-border e-commerce businesses operating on open-account terms. Eligible merchants can borrow up to 95% of accounts receivable against eligible invoices, with a limit of $5 million, maturities of up to 120 days and approval and drawdown as fast as one business day. The facility requires no traditional collateral and combines real-time sales data from overseas buyers with credit insurance and other trade and financial data.

Open-account exporters often pay for inventory, fulfilment and logistics well before overseas buyers settle their invoices. Advancing cash against those receivables brings the funding point closer to the merchant’s operating outlay. Buyer sales data gives the bank a current view of trading activity, while credit insurance absorbs part of the payment risk and reduces reliance on hard collateral. The combination lets underwriting follow e-commerce sales and invoice performance instead of a merchant’s stock of fixed assets.