Standard Chartered said Thursday it plans to offer digital asset custody services for institutional clients in Singapore, extending a custody footprint that already spans the United Arab Emirates, Luxembourg and Hong Kong.

The British multinational said the Singapore offering will cover "selected cryptoassets, stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets." The bank framed the move as a response to institutional and corporate clients demanding secure, regulated, bank-grade custody for digital assets.

Patrick Lee, CEO of Singapore and CEO of ASEAN & South Asia at Standard Chartered, said: "Singapore is an important centre for financial innovation, with a strong institutional ecosystem and growing demand for trusted digital asset solutions."

Lee added: "Robust infrastructure will be critical to supporting the secure movement, safekeeping, and servicing of tokenised assets at an institutional scale."

Why custody, and why Singapore?

Custody is typically the entry point for global banks moving into digital assets. BNY Mellon became the first major U.S. bank to offer digital asset custody services in 2022, and Germany's Deutsche Bank said last month it plans to launch custody for bitcoin, ether and select stablecoins for European corporate and institutional clients later in 2026, pending regulatory approval.

For Standard Chartered, Singapore adds a fourth jurisdiction to a custody network that already operates in the UAE, Luxembourg and Hong Kong. The city-state's regulator has cultivated a licensing regime aimed at institutional digital asset activity, which aligns with the bank's stated focus on regulated, bank-grade infrastructure.

The operational logic is straightforward. Custody anchors a broader service stack: once a bank safekeeps assets for institutions, it can attach trading, settlement and tokenization services on top. That sequencing matters for corporate treasurers and asset managers that need a single regulated counterparty rather than a patchwork of crypto-native providers.

A broader build-out

The Singapore custody plan continues an aggressive digital asset expansion that Standard Chartered began in 2025, when it set up a trading desk for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies in London — making it one of the first global banks to enter spot cryptocurrency trading. The desk was folded into the bank's forex trading operation.

The same year, the bank launched Libeara, a blockchain unit built to help institutions tokenize traditional assets.

Last month, Standard Chartered debuted bitcoin trading in the UAE for institutional clients, signaling that the bank treats the Gulf as a live market rather than a pilot.

The tokenization backdrop

The custody push lands amid accelerating tokenization activity on Wall Street, where traditional finance firms have struck deals with crypto companies — mostly to bring stocks onto blockchains and enable around-the-clock trading. Other asset classes are also being considered or debuted.

Banks in the U.S. and Europe have broadly begun offering crypto-related services, with custody for institutions the most common entry product. Standard Chartered's sequence — trading desk, tokenization unit, custody across four jurisdictions — positions it to service tokenized assets end to end once institutional issuance scales.

The bank has not disclosed a launch date for the Singapore service. Its stated ambition — servicing tokenized assets "at an institutional scale" — suggests the offering will mature alongside tokenized markets over the coming quarters.