Standard Chartered Hands UAE's Rich a Bank Receipt With Their Bitcoin 🏦

Standard Chartered has opened direct $BTC and $ETH trading to high-net-worth clients in the United Arab Emirates, allowing eligible professional investors to buy and sell the two largest cryptocurrencies through their existing bank accounts. The London-headquartered lender announced the service Wednesday, describing it as a global first for the bank and the first crypto trading offering of its kind from an international bank in the UAE.

Eligibility requires individuals to hold at least 4 million dirhams (about $1.1 million) in net assets excluding their primary residence, alongside sufficient investment knowledge and experience, or representation by a licensed entity. Trades are executed and settled inside Standard Chartered's own ecosystem via what the bank calls a closed-loop model that handles custody and settlement end-to-end, reducing reliance on third-party wallets. The product was built jointly by the bank's Wealth and Retail Banking and Corporate and Investment Banking units in collaboration with Zodia Markets, the digital asset trading firm backed by Standard Chartered's venture arm SC Ventures. Activity is conducted under licensing from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA).

"As client interest in digital assets continues to grow, this launch represents a significant milestone for Standard Chartered as we bring digital assets into our core wealth offering," said Samir Subberwal, global head of wealth solutions, retail products, data and analytics at Standard Chartered. Digital assets are "moving into mainstream wealth conversations," he added, with clients seeking the "security, trust and confidence that comes from investing through a regulated and trusted institution." Rola Abu Manneh, Standard Chartered's CEO for the UAE, Middle East and Pakistan, called the country a natural choice given its regulatory environment and its role as one of the bank's four global wealth hubs.

The wealth offering extends a crypto buildout that began in July 2025, when Standard Chartered became the first global systemically important bank to offer spot $BTC and $ETH trading to institutional clients through its U.K. branch. The bank brought that institutional desk to the UAE last month via its Dubai International Financial Centre unit, overseen by the Dubai Financial Services Authority. A custody service for digital assets went live in the UAE in September 2024 and in the European Union through a Luxembourg entity a few months later.

The launch lands as Standard Chartered joins a widening roster of firms expanding regulated crypto services in the country. Payward, parent of exchange Kraken, received VARA approval on Monday to provide crypto services through a local entity, and in July neobank Revolut secured in-principle VARA approval to offer crypto-related services in Dubai. Separately, Standard Chartered global head of digital asset research Geoff Kendrick wrote Friday that $BTC's recent slide to nearly $59,000 likely marked the low of the current crypto winter, a 53% drawdown from his October peak forecast of $126,000.