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Standard Chartered Brings Crypto Custody to Singapore
Standard Chartered Bank announced on October 8, 2026 that it will offer custody services for select cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and tokenized real-world assets to institutional clients and accredited corporate investors in Singapore. The offering is subject to regulatory approval and marks another step in the bank’s global expansion strategy for digital assets.
The custody services run through the bank’s custody arm Zodia Custody. Standard Chartered agreed in May 2026 to acquire the remaining stake in Zodia Custody, a company it originally co-founded with Northern Trust. With full control over Zodia, Standard Chartered can now roll out its custody infrastructure more directly into new markets.
Singapore as the Next Building Block in Global Expansion
Standard Chartered already offers crypto custody services in the United Arab Emirates, Luxembourg, and Hong Kong. Singapore is the next logical step in building a global network of regulated custody locations for digital assets. The city-state has long been regarded as one of Asia’s most important financial and innovation hubs, and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has established a comparatively well-developed regulatory environment for digital assets.
Ying Ying Tan, Global Head of Digital Assets and Securities Services at Standard Chartered, said the bank is seeing growing institutional interest in tokenized funds, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), and precious metals. The statement underscores that the bank’s focus is not limited to classic cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ether, but is specifically targeting the broader tokenization of real-world assets.
Patrick Lee, Singapore CEO of Standard Chartered, emphasized the city-state’s role as a financial and innovation hub. Singapore’s positioning as a regulatorily stable location for institutional digital assets was likely an important factor in the bank’s choice of the market as its next expansion step.
RLUSD Custody Launch: Live Start with Ripple on the XRP Ledger
Just four days after announcing the Singapore expansion, Standard Chartered took its next concrete step on October 12, 2026: the bank went live with custody services for Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin on the XRP Ledger. The launch runs through the bank’s DIFC branch (Dubai International Financial Centre) in Dubai, which is regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA).
This allows Standard Chartered to offer institutional clients a regulated custody solution for one of the most prominent stablecoins in the XRP Ledger ecosystem. RLUSD, issued by Ripple, is increasingly positioning itself as a bridge between traditional financial infrastructure and blockchain-based settlement systems.
Partnership with Ripple and LMAX Group: RLUSD as Collateral
Alongside the custody launch, Standard Chartered, Ripple, and the LMAX Group announced a collaboration to introduce RLUSD as eligible collateral for institutional trading. Specifically, Standard Chartered’s so-called “Collateral Mirroring Model” — a mechanism that mirrors collateral across different trading venues and custodians — is being extended to the LMAX Group.
This model is designed to allow institutional market participants to use RLUSD as collateral for trading positions without having to physically move assets between the trading venue and the custodian. That reduces operational friction, settlement risk, and capital tie-up — factors that are central for institutional trading desks.
Jack McDonald, Senior Vice President of Stablecoins at Ripple, emphasized that RLUSD was built specifically for this institutional use case. The statement explicitly positions RLUSD as an infrastructure component for regulated, institutional financial markets — not primarily as a retail-oriented stablecoin for end consumers.
What Is Zodia Custody?
Zodia Custody was originally founded as a joint venture between Standard Chartered and Northern Trust to offer institutional clients a regulated custody solution for digital assets. With the full acquisition agreed in May 2026, Standard Chartered has consolidated its control over the custody infrastructure. This allows the bank to offer custody services consistently across multiple jurisdictions — from Dubai to Luxembourg, Hong Kong, and now Singapore — under a unified governance structure.
What Is RLUSD?
RLUSD is a stablecoin issued by Ripple, available on both the XRP Ledger and Ethereum. Unlike many retail-oriented stablecoins, RLUSD specifically targets institutional use cases: cross-border payment settlement, liquidity management, and — as the latest announcement shows — collateral for institutional trading. The collaboration with established banking institutions like Standard Chartered is intended to give RLUSD regulatory credibility and access to traditional financial market infrastructure.
Significance for Institutional Market Participants
For institutional trading desks, hedge funds, and asset managers, custody services like Standard Chartered’s solve a central problem: many regulated institutions are only permitted to hold or trade digital assets if they use a custodian subject to the same regulatory standards as traditional securities custodians. By integrating Zodia Custody as a regulated custodian and using the Collateral Mirroring Model for LMAX, Standard Chartered creates exactly this bridge.
The LMAX Group is known as an institutional trading venue for foreign exchange and digital assets, serving primarily banks, brokers, and asset managers. Integrating RLUSD as collateral in this environment could improve liquidity for institutional trading strategies, since collateral can be moved more efficiently between trading venue and custodian without requiring physical transfers.
Context: Major Banks Expand Regulated Crypto Infrastructure for Institutions
Standard Chartered’s double announcement — custody expansion to Singapore and the RLUSD launch with Ripple and LMAX — fits into a broader trend: traditional major banks are increasingly investing in regulated crypto infrastructure explicitly aimed at institutional rather than retail clients.
A comparable example is BNY (Bank of New York Mellon), which also offers custody and staking services for the USDC stablecoin. Both cases show a similar pattern: established, heavily regulated financial institutions are gradually taking on functions — custody, collateralization, settlement — that were previously handled predominantly by specialized crypto-native providers.
For institutional investors, this development could mean lower counterparty risk, since they can hold digital assets through custodians already subject to strict banking regulations. For the crypto industry as a whole, the move signals progressing institutionalization: stablecoins, tokenized funds, and digital assets are increasingly becoming part of the standard toolkit of global banking infrastructure.
Whether and how quickly Standard Chartered’s Singapore expansion receives the required regulatory approval remains to be seen. The parallel live launch of RLUSD custody in Dubai, however, shows that the bank is using the momentum of recent weeks to build out its position in the institutional digital asset business on multiple fronts.
