Standard Chartered announced plans on Thursday to offer digital asset custody in Singapore, covering selected cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets for institutional clients and accredited corporate investors. The service, still subject to regulatory requirements, would run inside the bank’s Financing and Securities Services division rather than as a standalone crypto product. It extends a custody business that already reaches the United Arab Emirates, Luxembourg and Hong Kong, and lands in one of Asia’s densest concentrations of wealth managers and tokenization activity.
The bank did not name the assets it expects to support, nor a launch date, though reporting by Bitcoin.com News points to a launch target before the end of 2026. What the announcement does settle is scope: the service is meant to handle the full asset lifecycle, from safeguarding traditional securities to issuing and holding their tokenized versions, so a client can keep both books with the same bank.
Our Singapore launch further strengthens our ability to help clients bridge traditional and digital markets through secure, regulated and bank-grade infrastructure.
That line came from Ying Ying Tan, the bank’s global head of digital assets and securities services, in comments to CoinDesk. She noted that institutional interest has been spreading beyond the coins themselves: tokenized funds, ETFs and precious metals are the products clients ask about, looking for cheaper ways to hold and move assets that historically sat in separate silos.
Built on Zodia
None of this starts from zero. Standard Chartered founded Zodia Custody with Northern Trust and agreed in May to acquire the remainder of the firm, with shareholders and noteholders accepting the bank’s proposal subject to approvals. The plan folds Zodia’s regulated custody operations into the securities services division while spinning its technology infrastructure out as Zodia Solutions. The Singapore announcement does not confirm the acquisition has closed, but the two moves point the same way: more digital asset services under the bank’s own charter.
The trading side has moved too. Last month the bank began offering institutional spot bitcoin and ether trading through its Dubai branch’s foreign exchange platform, treating crypto as an FX-adjacent flow rather than a curiosity. Ole Matthiessen, global head of transaction services and digital assets, has described secure custody as the precondition for wider institutional participation, which is the standard argument: asset managers cannot allocate what they cannot safely hold.
| Hub | Digital asset services |
|---|---|
| UAE | Custody, spot bitcoin and ether trading via Dubai FX platform |
| Luxembourg | Institutional custody operations |
| Hong Kong | Institutional custody operations |
| Singapore (planned) | Custody for crypto, stablecoins and tokenized RWAs, pending clearance |
Singapore’s pull
The venue choice is not accidental. Singapore’s institutional crypto activity jumped 94% in the latest reporting period tracked by local analysts, reaching $28.4 billion, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore has spent years building a licensing regime that gives banks a defined lane rather than a gray zone. Patrick Lee, the bank’s chief executive for Singapore, ASEAN and South Asia, said institutions increasingly demand trusted infrastructure to move and safeguard tokenized assets as their participation grows.
For corporate treasurers and fund managers in the city-state, the practical difference is consolidation. Until now, holding tokenized assets or stablecoin balances usually meant a specialist custodian alongside the banking relationship. A bank-grade wrapper around both lets institutions manage treasury, collateral and digital settlement from one counterparty, which matters for tokenized funds and money market products where settlement speed is the selling point.
The bank race for custody
Standard Chartered is not first through the door. BNY expanded its digital asset custody platform to include USDC custody and minting in June, added crypto staking in August, and now services stablecoin flows for institutional clients at scale. The SEC’s Oct. 1 custody proposal, which would let registered advisers and funds hold crypto directly under narrow conditions or use state trust companies, is pushing in the same direction from the regulatory side: custody is becoming a service banks are expected to offer, not a liability to avoid.
The competitive logic is straightforward. Custody is the anchor product of asset servicing. A bank that holds the assets gets the adjacent business: securities lending, collateral management, fund administration, and eventually tokenized issuance. Crypto custody fees alone are thin, but the wallet share they unlock is not, which is why the largest custodians have stopped treating digital assets as a side experiment.
Other banks are watching the same numbers. HSBC named its Hong Kong dollar stablecoin RedCoin this week and published survey data showing 74% of its customers recognize stablecoins as a payment tool. Bloomberg launched a stablecoin dashboard on its Terminal covering supply, mint, burn and velocity data. Coinbase and Citi renewed a partnership on stablecoin payments and account infrastructure at the start of the month. The infrastructure layer, once the domain of crypto-native startups, is being absorbed into the terminals and custody platforms institutions already use.
What stands between the announcement and a live service is Singapore’s regulator. The bank has put its plans on the record, but clearance, the specific asset list and launch timing all remain open. The direction of travel, though, is hard to miss: one of the world’s biggest trade-finance banks now treats crypto, stablecoins and tokenized assets as core custody products across four financial centers, with Singapore as the next. A 2026 launch would put the service live in the same window the SEC’s custody proposal could be finalized in the US, and banks are positioning for both at once.