StanChart Joins the USDC Club, DIFC Gets the First Pour 🍾

Standard Chartered and Circle have built a system that lets institutional clients mint and redeem USDC directly through the bank rather than opening separate accounts with the stablecoin issuer, the two companies said on July 2. Standard Chartered said it is the first Global Systemically Important Bank (G-SIB) to offer such services for USDC, embedding stablecoin access inside the same risk, compliance and governance frameworks used in traditional banking. "By embedding USDC access directly within Standard Chartered's institutional offering, Standard Chartered will bring together banking, custody, and digital asset services within one integrated offering," the announcement said.

The initial rollout runs through Standard Chartered's Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) operations, with plans to expand to other markets pending regulatory approval and client demand. The capability targets institutional use cases including on-chain settlement, treasury operations and liquidity management, with payment-related applications planned for a later phase. USD Coin (USDC) carries a market capitalization of $73.2 billion, according to DefiLlama.

Circle Chief Commercial Officer Kash Razzaghi said institutions are seeking trusted stablecoin access. "By integrating Circle's regulated stablecoin infrastructure into Standard Chartered's global banking platform, we are helping institutions access new opportunities to use USDC across payments, settlement and treasury operations while maintaining the compliance, governance, and risk management standards they expect," he said. Standard Chartered's CEO of corporate and investment banking, Roberto Hoornweg, added: "Ultimately, this is about enabling broader institutional participation in digital asset markets through the frameworks, controls and regulatory oversight that have long supported confidence in global financial markets." A separate StanChart statement quoted Hoornweg saying, "Digital assets are becoming an increasingly important component of global financial infrastructure, and institutional clients are seeking the same levels of trust and governance that underpin traditional markets."

Standard Chartered is not the first major bank to offer USDC infrastructure. On June 29, BNY enabled clients to mint, redeem, custody and transfer USDC through its Digital Asset Custody platform, with Circle noting USDC is the first stablecoin supported on that platform. BNY custodies USDC's reserves and oversees $59.3 trillion in assets under custody or administration, and has said it plans to add further stablecoin issuers over time. Standard Chartered has helped design the Circle Payments Network since April 2025 alongside Santander, Deutsche Bank and Société Générale, and this week initiated coverage of the DeFi lending protocol Morpho.

Circle, listed as CRCL, saw shares rise more than 9% to a recent price of $67.75 on Thursday, according to Yahoo Finance, though the stock remains down roughly 33% over the past month. The move follows Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire's defense of USDC's network effects against new entrants including Open USD (OUSD), a rival stablecoin backed by more than 140 crypto and financial firms. "With OUSD, we work closely with many of the founding members, and we expect that those same members will remain large USDC partners and customers," Allaire said Wednesday. The bank-led USDC push comes amid a broader wave of regulatory clarity, including last year's GENIUS Act signing in the United States, that has accelerated traditional lenders' entry into stablecoin distribution.