Financial giant Standard Chartered is set to acquire crypto custody business Zodia Custody, in an attempt to roll out an integration spinoff.
According to the Bank’s official press release, the acquisition will see the industry behemoth fold Zodia custody’s operations into its own digital assets infrastructure. The new unit will be renamed as Zodia Solutions and will continue to operate as a standalone software-as-a service provider.
Interestingly, Standard Chartered owns a majority stake at orient in Zodia custody, making shareholder approval the most obvious cause. The banking giant had entered into a joint venture with SC ventures back in 2020 to launch Zodia. The firm raised $36 million in 2023 and was in talks for a further $50 million round as recently as late 2024.
Standard Chartered’s deal not an immediate action
The decision to bring Zodia Custody more directly into Standard Chartered has been building for quite some time and increasingly looked like the direction the bank was heading anyway.
Back in January 2025, Standard Chartered secured a Luxembourg licence that allowed it to offer crypto custody services directly under Europe’s MiCA regulations.
Later that year, the bank launched its own branded custody platform as well, which meant there were now two closely connected businesses operating similar digital asset infrastructure side by side.
With the expansion of the operations, some level of consolidation became harder to avoid.
Earlier this year, the bank was already exploring ways to integrate Zodia’s custody business into its broader corporate and institutional banking operations. The latest move now formalizes that shift, as Standard Chartered pushes to bring more of its crypto infrastructure directly under its main banking business while simplifying its overall digital asset strategy.
Standard Chartered’s move in tandem with market trend
The bank’s move also comes at a time when the traditional banking sector is seeing a much bigger shift happening, where large financial institutions are increasingly racing to secure regulatory approvals and legal structures that would allow them to directly custody crypto assets for clients.
In recent times, conventional banks have been steadily increasing their presence in digital assets as demand for exposure to crypto assets by institutions has continued to rise.
One of the leading banks that has taken an aggressive approach towards crypto is BNY Mellon. The bank started its digital asset custody services in the U.S. in 2022.
This allowed some of its institutional clients to store and trade cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum along with conventional financial assets under one regulatory regime.
However, more recently, in February 2026, Morgan Stanley made a request for a new national trust bank charter.
If the charter is granted, it would allow the bank to offer custody services for some of its clients’ digital assets under a fully bank-regulated regime.
