Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore) Limited wants to start offering institutional grade custody in Singapore for selected crypto assets, stablecoins and tokenised real world assets. It laid out the plan on 8 October.
Only institutional investors and corporate clients that qualify as accredited investors will be eligible, and nothing happens until regulators sign off. Ying Ying Tan, the bank’s global head of digital assets, said the aim is to have it done by the end of 2026.
Singapore would add to the bank’s existing custody footprint. It already offers digital asset custody in the UAE, Luxembourg and Hong Kong, and has MiCA authorisation in Luxembourg under the EU’s crypto rulebook. There’s also a custody partnership with LMAX Group.
Back in May 2026, the bank folded Zodia Custody, which used to run as a separate venture, into its own banking division. That pulled digital asset safekeeping much closer to the core bank.
No list of supported assets has been published yet. Posts on social media tying the Singapore plan to one particular stablecoin aren’t backed up by the bank’s own announcement, which only talks about stablecoins and selected crypto assets in general.
For treasurers and institutional investors in Singapore, this would mean keeping tokenised assets and stablecoins with a global bank rather than a standalone crypto custodian. Timing helps too, with stablecoins and tokenised deposits creeping into treasury and settlement work.
Digital Trade Outlook’s View: Custody Moves Inside the Bank
Standard Chartered once held digital asset custody at arm’s length through Zodia. Now it’s bringing that business in house and adding countries. For a lot of clients, having a regulated bank hold their tokenised assets probably matters more than speed. Approval is still pending and the asset list is still blank, so those two answers will tell us how big this really is.
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