Standard Chartered Bank (STAN) is further expanding its digital asset business. The bank is currently providing institutional clients in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) with spot trading services for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) through its Dubai International Financial Centre branch, becoming the first global systemically important bank (G-SIBs) to provide this capability locally.
Standard Chartered said that the launch of this business is part of its overall digital asset strategy. The strategy covers corporate and investment banking businesses and involves capabilities including digital asset custody, trading and tokenization.
Currently, Standard Chartered manages assets totaling $850 billion and is also the first bank to distribute one of Hong Kong’s two regulated stablecoins, which was launched in August.
The global systemically important banks (G-SIBs) consist of the 30 largest banks in the world, including JPMorgan Chase, HSBC and Citi. These banks are identified by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) as systemically important and are considered “too important to fail,” and therefore need to meet the strictest capital requirements in the global financial system.
For a long time, due to compliance and capital regulatory requirements, large financial institutions, including G-SIBs, have faced many restrictions on directly conducting spot cryptocurrency trading. Standard Chartered’s launch of related services in the UAE means that this restriction is at least beginning to see a breakthrough in markets outside the United States.
According to Standard Chartered’s arrangements, institutional clients can directly buy and sell Bitcoin and Ethereum spot through the bank’s existing foreign exchange trading platform, and can choose their preferred custodian during settlement, including the digital asset custody service provided by Standard Chartered itself.
A Standard Chartered spokesperson told CoinDesk that the bank operates the related business under a principal trading desk model, meaning that the bank will directly become the other party to the customer’s trade, rather than merely acting as a trading intermediary.
The spokesperson also added that Standard Chartered had already launched the same function through its UK branch as early as July 2025.
The launch of the UAE business also highlights that regulatory differences still exist between the United States and other markets. Currently, U.S. banks still face punitive capital treatment when holding physical spot crypto assets.
Standard Chartered said in a statement that the relevant framework established by the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) under the supervision of the Dubai Financial Services Authority provides the necessary room for the bank to develop this business.
However, Standard Chartered’s digital asset plans are not limited to spot trading. The bank said its goals also include providing institutional digital asset clients with custody, financing, collateral and prime brokerage services.
Luke Davis, founder and chief market strategist of Bull Market Blueprint, said that Standard Chartered has already secured one of the most valuable resources in institutional cryptocurrency distribution, namely customer relationships.
Luke Davis believes that incorporating crypto assets into an eFX trading platform under a regulated custody system will make Standard Chartered a legitimate competitor to crypto-native prime brokers.
However, he also pointed out that providing spot trading alone will limit the range of trading strategies that can be adopted. If it wants to attract large amounts of hedge fund capital, the bank will also need to provide derivatives and demonstrate the reliability of its liquidity and trade execution capabilities in an environment where the crypto market operates around the clock (24/7).