Standard Chartered has begun offering direct Bitcoin and Ethereum trading to affluent clients in the United Arab Emirates, marking the British bank’s first such wealth-management service anywhere in the world.
The service is available initially to clients designated as Professional Investors and follows licensing approval from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA). Eligible customers can buy and sell BTC and ETH using their existing Standard Chartered bank accounts, without having to open separate accounts with a crypto exchange or manage external wallets.
According to Decrypt, the bank will provide custody and settlement within its own banking ecosystem. Standard Chartered describes the arrangement as a closed-loop model, with transactions handled end to end by the bank through infrastructure developed with Zodia Markets, a digital-asset trading firm backed by the lender’s venture arm, SC Ventures.
What the new service offers
The launch gives qualifying UAE wealth clients direct ownership of Bitcoin and Ethereum rather than exposure through an investment product that follows cryptocurrency prices. The assets are held by the bank, while Standard Chartered manages the associated custody and settlement processes.
That distinguishes the offering from the indirect crypto access previously available through the bank. Wealth clients could already use the bank’s cash-equities platform to access crypto exchange-traded funds, as well as structured products and over-the-counter derivatives linked to digital-asset prices. Those products can provide price exposure without the customer directly holding the underlying coins.
Standard Chartered said the closed-loop structure is intended to reduce clients’ exposure to risks associated with third-party wallets. The bank presented the service as a way to combine direct crypto trading with the controls and account relationship of a regulated banking institution.
The product was developed jointly by Standard Chartered’s Wealth and Retail Banking and Corporate and Investment Banking divisions, in cooperation with Zodia Markets. The lender called the launch a global first for Standard Chartered and described it as the first crypto-trading service from an international bank in the UAE.
Why the UAE launch matters
The UAE is the first market where Standard Chartered is making this direct trading service available to wealth clients. The bank said it intends to expand the offering into additional markets, although it has not provided a timetable for that expansion.
Rola Abu Manneh, Standard Chartered’s chief executive for the UAE, the Middle East and Pakistan, said the country was a natural location for the launch because of its regulatory environment and its status as one of the bank’s four global wealth hubs.
The service operates under VARA approval. Dubai’s virtual-asset regulator is separate from the Dubai Financial Services Authority, which oversees activities in the Dubai International Financial Centre. Standard Chartered brought its institutional crypto-trading desk to the UAE last month through its DIFC unit, under the supervision of that other regulator.
The bank’s UAE crypto custody service had already launched in September 2024. A similar custody service became available in the European Union several months later through a Luxembourg-based entity.
The new wealth offering also extends a crypto business that had previously focused on institutional customers. In July 2025, Standard Chartered became the first global systemically important bank to offer spot trading in Bitcoin and Ethereum to institutional clients through its UK branch. Global systemically important banks are lenders regulators regard as large and important enough to require special oversight because of the potential consequences of their failure.
Standard Chartered’s crypto strategy and market picture
Standard Chartered has maintained a supportive view of digital assets. In June, Geoff Kendrick, the bank’s global head of digital-asset research, said the crypto winter was over after Bitcoin had fallen to nearly $59,000. The source material said that decline represented a 53% drop from Bitcoin’s October 2025 peak of $126,000. The bank has also maintained a $100,000 year-end target for BTC; that target is the bank’s view and is not a guarantee of future performance.
Samir Subberwal, Standard Chartered’s global head of wealth solutions, retail products, data and analytics, said the launch reflected growing client interest in digital assets and the bank’s effort to bring them into its core wealth offering. He said customers were seeking not only access but also the security associated with buying through a regulated institution.
Moneyiar market data at 21:29 on October 15, 2026, showed Bitcoin at $82,210.20, up 0.58% over 24 hours and 0.72% over seven days. Ethereum stood at $2,455.64, gaining 1.52% over 24 hours but declining 0.73% over seven days. The data also showed Shiba Inu at $0.0000051277, up 1.56% in 24 hours and down 3.24% over seven days, while Uniswap was at $7.49, up 5.47% over 24 hours and 2.11% over seven days.
