Standard Chartered Plans Crypto Custody for Institutions in Singapore

Published October 8, 2026, 10:55 UTC. Reporting via The Block, crypto.news and Asian Banking and Finance.

Standard Chartered is bringing crypto custody to Singapore. The bank's Singapore unit announced on Thursday it plans to offer custody for selected crypto assets, stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets to institutional investors, subject to applicable regulatory requirements.

The service would extend a custody footprint the bank already operates in the UAE, Luxembourg and Hong Kong. It would sit alongside the Singapore unit's Financing and Securities Services business, enabling the bank to "expand its support of institutional clients across wider asset lifecycles," the bank said in a statement reported by The Block.

What Singapore gets

The planned service targets institutional clients and accredited investor corporate clients, with no retail offering mentioned in the announcement. The bank did not say which crypto assets or tokenized instruments would qualify, or whether the offering would include settlement and transfer functions beyond custody, crypto.news reported.

The pitch is a unified one: institutional customers would be able to access safekeeping for conventional financial assets alongside custody for cryptocurrencies and tokenized assets, with the bank's existing securities-servicing business as the operational foundation. Tokenized real-world assets are conventional financial assets represented digitally on blockchains, and their custody involves safeguarding digital tokens while maintaining the records and servicing arrangements tied to the underlying assets.

The Zodia in-house shift

The expansion follows the bank's move to bring more of its crypto custody operations in-house. In April, Bloomberg reported that Standard Chartered was weighing folding parts of Zodia Custody, the institutional custodian it incubated with Northern Trust in 2020, into its corporate bank division. In May, the bank said its non-binding offer had been accepted.

Zodia has operated in Singapore since September 2023, when it began offering institutional crypto asset services in the city-state, and later expanded into Hong Kong. In June, Zodia secured a payment institution license in Luxembourg, enabling it to provide regulated stablecoin custody and transfer services across the EU, according to The Block.

Patrick Lee on the build-out

"Singapore is an important centre for financial innovation, with a strong institutional ecosystem and growing demand for trusted digital asset solutions," said Patrick Lee, Standard Chartered's CEO for Singapore, ASEAN and South Asia. "Robust infrastructure will be critical to supporting the secure movement, safekeeping, and servicing of tokenised assets at an institutional scale."

The announcement landed days after the bank deepened a different institutional crypto tie-up. On October 5, Anchorage Digital said it had extended USD accounts and SWIFT wire transfers to eligible institutional clients outside the US through Standard Chartered, running through Anchorage Digital Singapore, which is licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore as a major payment institution.

This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.

Sources

• The Block, Standard Chartered to expand crypto custody services in Singapore (Oct. 8, 2026), primary source
• crypto.news, Standard Chartered plans institutional crypto custody service in Singapore (Oct. 8, 2026)
• Asian Banking and Finance, Standard Chartered to offer digital asset custody to SG institutional clients (Oct. 8, 2026)