First Abu Dhabi Bank and Citi have completed live U.S. dollar transactions using tokenized deposits and Swift’s blockchain-based ledger, testing how digital bank money can operate alongside established cross-border payment infrastructure.
First Abu Dhabi Bank, or FAB, completed live U.S. dollar transactions with Citi through the minimum viable product version of Swift’s blockchain-based ledger.
The transactions used tokenized deposits and smart contracts as part of a system intended to support cross-border payments around the clock.
Citi said it had processed live transactions with FAB in the Middle East and with Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation, or OCBC, in Southeast Asia. Citi described itself as the first U.S. bank to conduct live native transactions on the ledger.
The FAB-Citi activity tested the interaction among Swift’s existing payment messages, tokenized deposits and distributed-ledger infrastructure. FAB became the first bank in the Middle East and Africa to reach this stage of the initiative.
Existing Settlement Channels Remain in Place
Tokenized deposits are digital representations of commercial bank deposits recorded through distributed-ledger technology. In this transaction, the deposits remained on the participating banks’ balance sheets rather than being transferred into the custody of Swift. The ledger coordinated payment commitments and recorded the resulting liabilities between the banks.
Swift’s role did not extend to holding customer money or replacing the banks involved in settlement. Final interbank settlement for the FAB transaction remained separate and used established correspondent-banking channels. Citi said the broader ledger model can also work with existing settlement arrangements, including real-time gross settlement systems, while the blockchain layer provides an immediate record of payment commitments.
The structure offers a bridge between newer tokenized-money networks and payment systems that banks already use. Rather than requiring every institution to issue or adopt a single digital currency, Swift’s ledger is designed to coordinate transactions involving deposits issued on participating banks’ own systems. Smart contracts record, sequence and validate the relevant instructions under agreed rules, while conventional banking controls continue to apply to final settlement.
Swift Moves From Design to Controlled Use
Swift first announced plans to add a shared blockchain ledger to its infrastructure in September 2025. More than 30 financial institutions, including FAB and Citi, contributed feedback during the design stage, while Consensys worked on the initial prototype. The project’s first stated use case was real-time, 24-hour cross-border payments involving regulated tokenized value.
By July 2026, Swift said the ledger was ready for initial use after nine months of development. The financial-messaging cooperative identified 17 banks from six continents that were preparing to pilot live tokenized-deposit transactions. The group included FAB, Citi, ANZ, BNP Paribas, BNY, DBS, HSBC, Standard Chartered, UBS and Wells Fargo, among others.
Citi said the controlled proof-of-concept phase is scheduled to run from July through December 2026. It expects to conduct additional transactions with DBS and United Overseas Bank, while FAB plans to continue working with Swift and other participants on interoperability, continuous cross-border settlement and programmable treasury applications. Those future stages will help determine whether the model can operate across more institutions, currencies and jurisdictions without creating new operational or liquidity risks.
Early Findings From the Live Transactions
The completed transactions provide evidence that existing Swift messages can interact with tokenized bank deposits and a shared blockchain ledger in a live setting. They also show that banks can experiment with continuous payment processing while retaining their existing balance-sheet relationships and established mechanisms for final settlement.
Citi’s work with FAB in the Middle East and OCBC in Southeast Asia also gives the pilot a cross-regional dimension. Applying the same ledger framework across separate banking relationships provides an early indication of how shared infrastructure could connect institutions operating in different markets.
Regulatory treatment, technical standards and liquidity arrangements will shape any wider rollout. Operating continuously may give corporate treasurers faster access to funds outside normal banking hours, but banks would need to manage liquidity, compliance and operational controls on the same schedule.
