Standard Chartered has entered into definitive agreements to acquire Zodia Custody, the institutional digital asset custodian it helped establish through its SC Ventures innovation arm. The transaction, announced on 21 October 2026, will see Standard Chartered I H Limited acquire 100% of Zodia Custody Limited, the parent of regulated operating entities spanning Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, the United Arab Emirates and Luxembourg. Completion remains subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.
Once integrated, Zodia Custody’s regulated business will sit inside Standard Chartered’s Securities Services division alongside its existing digital asset custody activities in the UAE and Luxembourg. The bank says the combination is intended to create a unified offering that covers both traditional and digital asset securities for institutional clients, removing the operational separation that has existed between the two lines.
The carve-out: Zodia Solutions
A notable structural feature of the deal is the concurrent separation of Zodia Custody’s software and professional services arm. That business will be transferred to a newly established entity, Zodia Solutions, housed under SC Ventures rather than absorbed into the bank’s core. Zodia Solutions will continue to provide bank-grade custody infrastructure to financial institutions, including Standard Chartered itself.
A consortium of bank investors will support Zodia Solutions, including NAB Ventures, Northern Trust Corporation, SBI Ventures, Further Ventures (Q Studio), Emirates NBD, Investcorp’s Zodia Investments, and SC Ventures. The structure effectively preserves the vendor relationship with third-party institutions while giving Standard Chartered full ownership of the regulated custody entity. No financial terms for either the acquisition or the capitalisation of Zodia Solutions were disclosed.
Ying Ying Tan, global head of securities services and digital assets at Standard Chartered, said the deal “deepens our digital asset custody portfolio and reinforces our position as a leading provider of digital asset services globally, supported by the depth, breadth and global connectivity of an international cross-border bank.”
Market and regulatory context
The acquisition reflects a broader consolidation trend in institutional digital asset custody. As regulators in major jurisdictions have moved to clarify the treatment of crypto assets held on behalf of clients, the custody layer has become a strategic priority for tier-one banks rather than a speculative adjacency. In the EU, MiCA’s requirements for crypto-asset service provider authorisation have accelerated demand for licensed custodians with established banking relationships. In Asia, Hong Kong’s VASP licensing regime and Singapore’s MAS framework have similarly pushed institutional clients towards regulated, bank-affiliated counterparties.
Standard Chartered’s move brings regulated custody licences across five jurisdictions into a single ownership structure, which is a meaningful regulatory footprint. Few custodians of any type can offer that breadth under one bank’s balance sheet, and the combination with an established securities services business creates a cross-sell opportunity into the bank’s existing institutional client base.
Competitors in the institutional custody space include Anchorage Digital, Copper and Coinbase Custody at the specialist end, as well as BNY Mellon and Citigroup, which have been building digital asset custody capabilities within their own securities services businesses. The Standard Chartered and Zodia Solutions model, where the software platform remains available to third-party banks, is an attempt to capture infrastructure revenue beyond the bank’s own custody clients.
Richard Clark, chief executive of Zodia Custody, noted that “custody is increasingly becoming part of the global banking landscape” as institutional adoption accelerates. The next markers to watch are which jurisdictions grant regulatory approval first and how quickly the combined custody offering is brought to market for Securities Services clients.
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