Standard Chartered has entered into definitive agreements to amass Zodia Custody, the institutional digital asset custodian it helped set up by means of its SC Ventures innovation arm. The transaction, introduced on 21 October 2026, will see Standard Chartered I H Limited purchase 100% of Zodia Custody Limited, the mother or father of regulated working entities spanning Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, the United Arab Emirates and Luxembourg. Completion stays topic to regulatory approvals and customary closing situations.
Once built-in, Zodia Custody’s regulated enterprise will sit inside Standard Chartered’s Securities Services division alongside its current digital asset custody actions in the UAE and Luxembourg. The financial institution says the mix is meant to create a unified providing that covers each conventional and digital asset securities for institutional shoppers, eradicating the operational separation that has existed between the 2 strains.
The carve-out: Zodia Solutions
A notable structural function of the deal is the concurrent separation of Zodia Custody’s software program {and professional} companies arm. That enterprise can be transferred to a newly established entity, Zodia Solutions, housed below SC Ventures moderately than absorbed into the financial institution’s core. Zodia Solutions will proceed to supply bank-grade custody infrastructure to monetary establishments, together with Standard Chartered itself.
A consortium of financial institution traders will help Zodia Solutions, together with NAB Ventures, Northern Trust Corporation, SBI Ventures, Further Ventures (Q Studio), Emirates NBD, Investcorp’s Zodia Investments, and SC Ventures. The construction successfully preserves the seller relationship with third-party establishments whereas giving Standard Chartered full possession of the regulated custody entity. No monetary phrases for both the acquisition or the capitalisation of Zodia Solutions had been disclosed.
Ying Ying Tan, world head of securities companies and digital property at Standard Chartered, stated the deal “deepens our digital asset custody portfolio and reinforces our position as a leading provider of digital asset services globally, supported by the depth, breadth and global connectivity of an international cross-border bank.”
Market and regulatory context
The acquisition displays a broader consolidation pattern in institutional digital asset custody. As regulators in main jurisdictions have moved to make clear the remedy of crypto property held on behalf of shoppers, the custody layer has turn into a strategic precedence for tier-one banks moderately than a speculative adjacency. In the EU, MiCA’s necessities for crypto-asset service supplier authorisation have accelerated demand for licensed custodians with established banking relationships. In Asia, Hong Kong’s VASP licensing regime and Singapore’s MAS framework have equally pushed institutional shoppers in direction of regulated, bank-affiliated counterparties.
Standard Chartered’s transfer brings regulated custody licences throughout 5 jurisdictions right into a single possession construction, which is a significant regulatory footprint. Few custodians of any kind can provide that breadth below one financial institution’s steadiness sheet, and the mix with a longtime securities companies enterprise creates a cross-sell alternative into the financial institution’s current institutional shopper base.
Competitors in the institutional custody area embody Anchorage Digital, Copper and Coinbase Custody on the specialist finish, in addition to BNY Mellon and Citigroup, which have been constructing digital asset custody capabilities inside their very own securities companies companies. The Standard Chartered and Zodia Solutions mannequin, the place the software program platform stays out there to third-party banks, is an try and seize infrastructure income past the financial institution’s personal custody shoppers.
Richard Clark, chief govt of Zodia Custody, famous that “custody is increasingly becoming part of the global banking landscape” as institutional adoption accelerates. The subsequent markers to observe are which jurisdictions grant regulatory approval first and the way shortly the mixed custody providing is dropped at marketplace for Securities Services shoppers.
AI stage 1 of 5: written by Darlyn Ho; AI helped with tone, construction or wording; edited and signed off by Mark Walker, Editorial Director. What the degrees imply
