Standard Chartered Plans Singapore Custody for Crypto, Stablecoins and Tokenised Assets
Key points
- Standard Chartered plans to launch institutional digital-asset custody in Singapore covering selected cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and tokenised RWAs, though no assets or launch date have been specified.
- The service will be available to institutional clients and accredited-investor corporate clients, and will operate within the bank's financing and securities-services business rather than as a retail product.
- Singapore extends a custody footprint already present in the UAE, Luxembourg and Hong Kong, with Ying Ying Tan, global head of digital assets and securities services, citing tokenised funds, ETFs and precious metals as key institutional use cases.
- Standard Chartered agreed in May to acquire the remaining stake in Zodia Custody, its co-venture with Northern Trust, and in September began offering institutional spot bitcoin and ether trading through its Dubai branch.
- The announcement carries no committed timeline and remains conditional on regulatory requirements, placing it firmly in the planning rather than operational stage.
Standard Chartered has announced plans to extend institutional digital-asset custody to Singapore, covering selected cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and tokenised real-world assets (RWAs). The service will sit within the bank’s financing and securities-services division rather than function as a retail product, and will be available to institutional clients and accredited-investor corporate clients, subject to applicable regulatory requirements. No specific assets or launch timeline have been disclosed.
Singapore would join a custody network that already spans the United Arab Emirates, Luxembourg and Hong Kong, consolidating Standard Chartered’s position across the principal financial centres where institutional digital-asset activity is concentrating. The bank flagged tokenised funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and precious metals as the categories attracting the most visible client interest, with the service designed to support the full asset lifecycle: safeguarding traditional assets through to issuing and holding tokenised versions of those assets.
The Singapore expansion follows the bank’s agreement in May to acquire the remainder of Zodia Custody, the institutional custody firm it co-founded with Northern Trust. Last month it also began offering institutional spot bitcoin and ether trading through its Dubai branch’s foreign-exchange platform. Together, these moves suggest a deliberate sequencing: consolidate custody infrastructure first through Zodia, then layer trading and localised custody access on top. Whether Singapore’s Monetary Authority of Singapore licensing process becomes the gating factor on timing is the immediate question for counterparties evaluating the relationship.