Standard Chartered has reportedly been planning to launch a crypto prime brokerage, further advancing its position into digital assets space.
Reports from Bloomberg suggest that Standard Chartered has joined several other global banks working on accelerating their efforts to compete for institutional crypto flows. People familiar with the matter said that the lender intends to include the new business within SC Ventures, its wholly owned venture capital arm, instead of as part of its core corporate and investment bank.
The same sources, which spoke under condition of anonymity due to the plans not being disclosed to the public, mention that discussions are still in early stages, while the exact timing of the launch is not yet determined.
This comes as regulators across the world move forward in their discussions regarding crypto capital rules revisions. Despite this, global banks continue their digital asset push. For example, in the US, JPMorgan Chase has been looking into including crypto trading for institutional clients, and Morgan Stanley has filed to roll out Bitcoin, Ether, and Solana exchange-traded funds.
Standard Chartered’s crypto push
Standard Chartered has positioned itself among the most active financial institutions when it comes to the digital assets space, supporting companies such as crypto custodian Zodia Custody and institutional trading venue Zodia Markets. Additionally, July 2025 saw the lender become one of the first global banks to provide spot crypto trading to institutional clients. Towards the end of the year, Standard Chartered expanded its strategic partnership on digital assets with Coinbase, seeking to further explore the sector, while just a few days later, the lender launched a tokenized deposit solution allowing clients to move money from traditional bank ledgers onto blockchain infrastructure.
Its venture capital arm, SC Ventures, has also embarked on several other broader ambitions in the crypto space. In December 2025, SC Ventures mentioned that it was working on a digital asset joint venture known as Project37C. At that time, it was communicated that the project was a light financing and markets platform providing custody, tokenization, and market access. Even if that particular announcement did not classify the move as a prime brokerage, it indicated overlapping capabilities.
