Citigroup has completed its first instant international payment in dollars with a partner bank, Thailand’s Siam Commercial Bank, marking an expansion of the US lender’s instant payments capability beyond its own network.
Phillip Securities Thailand, a client of SCB, made an instant transfer of funds in dollars from a Citigroup account in the UK to a Siam Commercial Bank account in Thailand during the US July 4 holiday weekend, Citigroup said in a statement.
SCB is among the 300 banks integrated with Citi’s international instant payments network, which serves multinational clients through the bank’s Services division.
Citi’s Head of Payments Debopama Sen said she sees rising client interest in instant international transfers between accounts in different banks.
The transaction points to growing momentum behind real-time cross-border settlement at the top end of the market. Instant international transfers through tokenised deposits within Citigroup accounts held by companies are already close to $1 billion daily, while Citigroup’s global payments division processes around $6 trillion daily across 180 countries.
Extending instant dollar payments to partner banks moves the capability beyond intra-Citi transfers into the broader correspondent network, a step that matters for corporates and financial institutions managing liquidity across time zones, as the holiday-weekend timing of the first transaction demonstrated.