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- Standard Chartered to launch prime brokerage for crypto trading, catering to institutional clients.
- SC Ventures to house the new crypto service, managing risks while supporting digital assets.
- Crypto ETFs gain popularity as institutional interest grows, with $140B in assets under management.
Standard Chartered is gearing up to launch a prime brokerage service for cryptocurrency trading, reflecting the growing commitment of global banks to digital assets. This service will cater to institutional investors, offering crucial support such as asset safekeeping, lending, and funding.
The new venture would likely function within the bank under its innovation arm, SC Ventures. Early plans are still underway, but people close to the issue point out that negotiations are taking place, though no actual date of the launch has been heard yet.
Standard Chartered has already been present in the digital asset space. The bank prospers from Zodia Custody, which is a platform for institutional storage of digital assets. It also runs Zodia Markets, in which professional investors have an opportunity to trade in such cryptocurrencies as Bitcoin and Ether.
In 2025, the bank became a pioneer by allowing institutional clients to trade cryptocurrency and engage in spot trading directly at the bank, making it the first major global institution to offer direct trading of these assets. The move to digital currencies also provides clients with an avenue to purchase and sell the currencies immediately, rather than using the future contracts.
Standard Chartered Expands Crypto Presence with Project37C
SC Ventures announced Project37C, another new venture, to establish a digital asset platform that offers custody services, tokenization, and market access. The aim of the platform is to offer more effective access to institutional clients to digital assets. The announcement, however, did not mention the prime brokerage initiative explicitly, and no other partners were mentioned.
Although the specifics of Project37C are not clear, it would indicate that Standard Chartered is still investing in the cryptocurrency world. Using the already established crypto infrastructure, the bank is establishing itself as a major player in the emerging digital asset market.
The decision to house the prime brokerage under SC Ventures is a strategic move to manage the higher capital requirements associated with cryptocurrency trading. Digital assets come with elevated risks, so banks must maintain higher capital reserves when handling them. By placing crypto operations under SC Ventures, Standard Chartered can mitigate these risks without overburdening its balance sheet.
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The relocation also enables Standard Chartered to provide services to institutional customers without subjecting the core operations of the bank to undue risk. This is an approach that is growing in demand within financial institutions that provide cryptocurrency services.
Crypto ETFs Gain Popularity as Institutional Interest Surges
The step of Standard Chartered is a part of a larger trend of banks to use cryptocurrency services. JPMorgan Chase in the U.S. is considering trading cryptocurrency to institutional customers, and Morgan Stanley has further plans in Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana exchange-traded funds (ETFs).
Digital assets have become more accessible because, using ETFs, investors can get exposure to cryptocurrencies without owning them directly. Crypto ETFs have become more popular, and more than $140 billion of assets are under management by these funds, which is an indication of institutional interest that builds around cryptocurrencies.
The cryptocurrency Prime brokerage market is heating up. In 2025, Ripple purchased hidden road, a crypto-centric prime brokerage, for $1.25 billion. FalconX later acquired 21Shares, one of the largest issuers of crypto ETFs, in the same year. These buyouts reveal the increasing significance of prime brokerage as a point of entry into the crypto industry by big institutions.
The recent announcement of prime brokerage by Standard Chartered highlights the growing acceptance of cryptocurrencies in mainstream finance worldwide. It underlines the transformation of digital assets from a speculative investment into a significant asset in an institutional portfolio.
