- Standard Chartered plans to integrate Zodia Custody’s core business into its CIB division as early as April 2026, Bloomberg reported.
- Zodia Custody will maintain its independent SaaS model, serving third-party banks in 7 locations around the world, covering over 75 assets.
- Standard Chartered has made no official comment, leaving doubt over the minority shareholder status of SBI Holdings and NAB.
Overhaul of Standard Chartered’s cryptocurrency custody division could happen in April 2026, report says
According to the Bloomberg report, discussions are confidential and ongoing, and an announcement could come as early as April 2026. The plan envisions the merger of redundant custody functions that currently operate in parallel within the bank and at Zodia Custody, which Standard Chartered launched in late 2020 through its innovation arm SC Ventures, in collaboration with Northern Trust.
Zodia Custody should not disappear. The company would continue to operate as a standalone Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform, offering white-label cryptocurrency custody services to other financial institutions under their own brand. This would result in a dual identity: custody services intended for the bank’s customers would be internalized, while the SaaS activity would be aimed at third-party banks and fintechs.
The rationale for this decision is operational efficiency. Standard Chartered has been developing direct digital asset custody and trading services within its CIB division since at least 2024, including UAE-focused custody services launched in September this year. Performing the same function both through the CIB division and a separate entity creates redundancy. Integration would eliminate this overlap.
Zodia Custody holds regulatory licenses in the UK from the Financial Conduct Authority, Luxembourg under MiCA, Hong Kong and Singapore. It operates from seven offices around the world and maintains custody of more than 75 cryptocurrencies and tokenized assets. Since its inception, the company has positioned itself as “from the banking industry, built for digital assets”, with bank-grade compliance and insolvency protections built into its framework.
SBI Holdings (Japan), National Australia Bank and Emirates NBD hold minority stakes in Zodia Custody. It is unknown whether these shareholders were officially consulted. No official statement from Standard Chartered or Zodia Custody had been published as of Wednesday April 8, 2026.
Standard Chartered’s broader push into cryptocurrencies has gathered pace through SC Ventures, its venture capital and fintech investment arm. Its portfolio includes Zodia Markets, an institutional trading and stablecoin payments platform whose CEO Usman Ahmad left in March 2026, as well as Libeara, a tokenization company. In January 2026, SC Ventures announced its intention to engage in prime brokerage of cryptocurrencies.
The bank also signed a memorandum of understanding with the South Korean group Hana Financial Group for projects related to stablecoins and is positioning itself as a candidate for one of the first stablecoin issuer licenses in Hong Kong. In November 2025, it launched a stablecoin-linked credit card partnership in Singapore.
A partnership concluded in 2025 with Galaxy Digital enabled Zodia Custody to provide institutional staking services to European clients, covering $4.2 billion in assets at the time. Other integrations include Bitfinex, Membrane Labs and Fireblocks through Zodia Markets.
This initiative reflects a growing trend in the global banking industry. As regulatory clarity increases in major jurisdictions, traditional banks are shifting digital asset functions from their experimental divisions to their regulated core businesses. The EU’s MiCA framework, the UAE’s VARA regime, and the licensing rules for stablecoins in Hong Kong have each contributed to this development.
For Standard Chartered’s corporate and institutional clients, this integration could result in a single custody solution combining traditional securities and digital assets under a single regulated entity, reducing operational friction in settlement and compliance. For Zodia Custody, the SaaS model remains unchanged. Banks and fintechs looking for a custody solution that they can deploy under their own brand will continue to have access to the platform.
