How Standard Chartered Is Reinventing Crypto Trading for Big Investors

• Institutional investors gain regulated access to Bitcoin and Ethereum trading.
• Institutional customers use crypto through standardized FX platforms that have safe custody alternatives.
• The company will offer non-delivery forwards and extended services to increase access to digital assets.

The first global bank that publicly announced the offering of direct crypto spot trading to institutional clients is Standard Chartered. Its UK branch is launching the initiative to address the rising demand from corporations, asset managers, and investors seeking secure channels to trade digital assets.

This new service is also compatible with the current foreign exchange trading platforms in the bank. The institutional clients now have the opportunity to deal in deliverable spot trades of Bitcoin and Ether via familiar interfaces and prefer the settlement of their trades via Standard Chartered’s own custody platform 

A New Era in Crypto Institutional Trading

The release marks the milestone at which conventional finance is adopting digital assets in the compliant regulatory regimes. Standard Chartered will place itself at the forefront of this change because it will offer a secure, controlled, and efficient cryptoasset trading environment currently only available on less-regulated platforms.

The CEO of Standard Chartered (Bill Winters) declared, We are looking to offer a secure and efficient method to transact, trade, and manage the digital asset risk within the regulator. The bank has laid down the next course of action to introduce non-deliverable forward (NDFs) trading on Bitcoin and Ethereum in the coming days.

Standard Chartered, with an eye on a 24/5, currently allows customers around the world who wish to avail of regulated crypto exposure through standard banking mediums to do so by facilitating spot trading during Asia and European market hours.

Bridging Traditional Finance and Digital Innovation

The decision by Standard Chartered may be a game-changer in the industry of digital assets, given that it will establish the standards of compliance and integration in company operations with the mainstream financial services. The bank has operated in the digital assets space for several years, having invested in custody and trading platforms, including Zodia Custody and Zodia Markets, and also in tokenization services, through Libera, a portfolio company.

With the security of being a systemically important bank in the background, institutional participants now have access to the crypto markets. This increases trust and accessibility, which can create a greater institutional adoption. The service proposed by Standard Chartered is an easy bridge for corporates and asset managers into crypto investment strategies, vested with regulatory control and business functionality.

The step is likely to shape the industry-wide adoption of institutional crypto trading desks, which shows the growing interest in digital assets in the context of the mainstream financial system. That the crypto trading was seamlessly integrated with the FX workflows implies that it will allow institutional clients to conduct crypto exposure just as they do with traditional asset classes.