Emirates NBD has gone live on Partior, a multi-currency, blockchain-based clearing and settlement network, enabling real-time cross-border USD payments for its corporate and institutional clients. The Dubai-headquartered bank describes itself as "the first financial institution in the region to enable real-time, blockchain-based cross-border payments on Partior's infrastructure."
What actually happened
Emirates NBD completed a live cross-border USD transaction using the Partior network for settlement and clearing. Following that trial, the bank is now enabling real-time USD payments for corporate and institutional clients, with beneficiary accounts held at JP Morgan. JP Morgan acted as both the settlement and beneficiary bank during the trial transaction and is an official partner and founder of Partior.
What is Partior
Partior, launched in 2021, offers a ledger platform for wholesale payments. It grew out of Project Ubin, a multi-year blockchain and digital currency exploration initiative backed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
Founders of the network include JP Morgan, DBS Bank and investment firm Temasek, which is owned by the government of Singapore. Standard Chartered joined as a founding shareholder in 2022 through a strategic investment.
Partior last raised over $60 million in a Series B round led by Peak XV Partners, formerly Sequoia Capital India and SEA, with Valor Capital Group and Jump Trading Group as other initial participants. Deutsche Bank added a top-up in November 2024, bringing the round's total to $80 million.
Where Emirates NBD fits in
Emirates NBD, a $317 billion-asset bank, made a strategic investment in Partior through its Innovation Fund in October 2024 — the same point at which it first announced plans to join the network.
The bank says it wants to expand its participation "across additional currencies, settlement corridors and more participating banks globally as the Partior network scales."
Why it matters
The go-live signals that Partior's wholesale settlement rail is moving from bank-led investment and pilots toward live, revenue-generating transaction flow for a major Gulf institution. Deutsche Bank has already completed its first euro transaction with Partior and DBS in September last year.
That same month, SBI Shinsei Bank and DCJPY operator DeCurret DCP in Japan signed a deal to develop a framework allowing Partior's network to accept deposits in tokenised Japanese yen.
Taken together, these moves point to a network expanding currency by currency and bank by bank — with Emirates NBD's go-live marking its first live USD corridor with a Gulf-based institution.
