Settlement Guide
How OTC settlement works end-to-end: funding methods, settlement windows by corridor, what a trade confirmation contains, and how to reconcile it against your books. Written for corporate treasury and finance teams.
1. Funding methods
Once a dealer confirms your RFQ and you accept the locked quote, the trade is funded through one of the approved methods:
KeyBS wallet balance — the fastest path: funds already held in your multi-currency KeyBS Pay account are earmarked against the trade immediately on acceptance.
Bank transfer on an approved rail — domestic or international transfer to the desk’s designated funding account. The settlement clock starts when funds are credited, not when the transfer is initiated.
Stablecoin transfer — USDC or USDT to the wallet address issued for the trade. On-chain confirmations are typically the fastest funding leg for cross-border counterparties.
2. Settlement windows by corridor
Most trades settle same-day to T+1. The exact window depends on the currency pair, corridor and funding rail used — the expected window is stated on every dealer quote before you accept.
Africa → China — same-day when funded before the corridor cut-off; otherwise T+1. CNY legs settle through Chinese payment rails.
Africa → Gulf — typically same-day; AED settlement follows UAE banking hours for fiat legs, while stablecoin legs settle on confirmation.
Africa → US/EU — same-day to T+1 depending on wire cut-offs in the receiving jurisdiction.
Stablecoin ↔ stablecoin / fiat — settles on network confirmation once the funding leg clears.
3. What a trade confirmation contains
Every settled trade produces a compliance-ready confirmation, issued automatically. It contains:
Trade reference and RFQ timestamp · counterparty legal names · currency pair, notional amount and dealer-confirmed rate · funding method and receiving account details · settlement date and value date · desk hub of execution · and the compliance attestation line confirming KYB status of both counterparties.
Confirmations are retained by KeyBS Pay for audit and regulatory reporting, and remain retrievable on request.
4. Reconciling against your books
Match on the trade reference: it appears on the confirmation, the funding instruction and the settlement credit, so a three-way match closes the trade in your ledger.
Book the dealer-confirmed rate as the executed rate — there is no separate spread or slippage line to account for, which is one of the practical accounting advantages of OTC execution over exchange fills.
For multi-tranche settlements, each tranche carries the parent trade reference plus a tranche suffix, allowing partial deliveries to be reconciled without ambiguity.
Questions about a specific corridor’s settlement window?
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