Bank offers USD‑USDC on Solana

Singapore Gulf Bank said on April 17 it has started letting clients convert U.S. dollars and USD Coin directly on Solana from inside bank accounts. (prnewswire.com) The service is live for corporate and high-net-worth clients, and the bank said it supports instant, 24/7 settlement without using traditional correspondent banking flows. Solana transactions get waived gas and bank fees for a limited period, with volume-based rewards afterward. (zawya.com) At launch, the product supports USDC transfers above $100,000, and Singapore Gulf Bank said the mint-and-redeem function is built into SGB Net, its in-house clearing network. The bank also said it plans to add more blockchains and more stablecoins after the first rollout. (thedefiant.io) Stablecoins are digital tokens designed to hold a fixed price, usually $1, and “mint” and “redeem” are the on-and-off ramps between bank money and those tokens. A bank offering that step inside its own platform cuts out some of the handoffs that usually send corporate transfers through outside exchanges, custodians, or payment intermediaries. (prnewswire.com) Singapore Gulf Bank has been building toward that model since at least May 2024, when it launched corporate banking services for digital-economy clients with backing from Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat and Singapore’s Whampoa Group. The bank operates from Bahrain and has said it is targeting cross-border business between Asia and the Gulf. (sgb.com) The Solana choice is about payment plumbing, not just crypto branding. Singapore Gulf Bank said Solana got the launch incentives because of its speed and low transaction costs, while the bank’s broader service is meant to work across multiple chains. (zawya.com) Other firms are pushing the same direction from a different angle. Circle rolled out Circle Payments Network Managed Payments earlier in April, pitching stablecoin settlement tools for traditional finance firms that want fiat payments to move on crypto rails. (thedefiant.io) The appeal is timing as much as cost: bank wires still stop for weekends, cutoffs, and local holidays, while blockchains do not. Shawn Chan, Singapore Gulf Bank’s chief executive, said clients expanding across jurisdictions have been running into delays moving and settling capital across borders. (prnewswire.com) The test now is whether bank clients use the new rail in size, starting with transfers above $100,000. If they do, Singapore Gulf Bank’s Solana launch turns a stablecoin from a trading token into a bank payment option with a dollar account on one side and USDC on the other. (thedefiant.io)