The crypto custody market reached a new consolidation milestone Wednesday when Bloomberg reported that Standard Chartered is planning to integrate Zodia Custody’s business into its corporate and investment bank division as early as this month, folding its majority-owned crypto custody subsidiary into an internal division that already offers similar services.
Summary
- The restructuring plan would merge overlapping custody functions that currently run in parallel between Standard Chartered’s internal CIB digital asset unit and the bank-backed Zodia Custody subsidiary it co-founded in 2020 with Northern Trust; an announcement could come as early as April 2026
- Zodia Custody would not disappear: the plan preserves Zodia as a standalone software-as-a-service platform offering crypto custody white-label services to third-party banks and fintechs across its seven offices in London, Dublin, Luxembourg, Singapore, the UAE, Sydney, and Hong Kong
- Standard Chartered declined to comment on the reported plans; minority shareholders including Northern Trust, Emirates NBD, SBI Holdings, and National Australia Bank did not immediately respond to or confirm whether they have been approached about the restructuring
The crypto custody market is consolidating, and Standard Chartered’s reported move to absorb Zodia Custody is its clearest signal yet that the bank intends to own the institutional digital asset infrastructure its advisors and corporate clients use, rather than maintaining it at arm’s length through a subsidiary. Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that discussions are underway to fold Zodia’s custody operations into the bank’s CIB division — a unit that has been building its own digital asset services since at least 2024.
The logic is operational. Zodia Custody and Standard Chartered’s internal division have been running parallel custody infrastructure, creating redundancy. Merging them consolidates both functions under a single regulated entity, reducing overhead and simplifying client-facing structures.
Under the reported plan, Zodia Custody’s customer-facing business for Standard Chartered’s institutional clients would move inside the bank. But Zodia would not be wound down. The subsidiary would continue operating as a white-label SaaS platform, providing crypto custody services to other banks and fintech firms that want to offer institutional-grade custody under their own brand. Zodia currently supports over 75 digital assets across seven offices globally, employs approximately 150 people, and holds regulatory registrations across the UK, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Hong Kong.
The dual structure — one business internalized, one remaining external — mirrors what the bank has already done with its broader digital asset strategy. Standard Chartered launched its own crypto custody services in Luxembourg in January 2025 and introduced spot crypto trading for institutional clients in July 2025 under the CIB umbrella. Those internal services were competing with Zodia’s external-facing platform for the same client base.
Standard Chartered’s Broader Crypto Stack
The Zodia integration fits into a multi-year digital asset buildout that now spans custody, trading, stablecoins, and prime brokerage. In January 2026, Standard Chartered moved to establish a crypto prime brokerage within its SC Ventures unit. In November 2025, it partnered with DCS Card Centre to support stablecoin-linked credit cards in Singapore. In March 2026, Bloomberg separately reported that Zodia Markets — the bank’s crypto trading subsidiary — lost its CEO Usman Ahmad in March, with Nick Philpott stepping in as interim. That leadership change preceded the custody restructuring news by less than two weeks.
As crypto.news reported, Zodia had been raising capital and expanding globally as recently as late 2024, with plans to enter new markets and attract tokenization and payments investors. As crypto.news noted, Standard Chartered secured its EU crypto custody license in Luxembourg in January 2025 — a move that in retrospect looks like preparation for bringing Zodia’s operations inside the regulatory perimeter of the bank itself.
The broader custody competition is intensifying. BNY Mellon, State Street, and Morgan Stanley — which named BNY Mellon as custodian for its MSBT Bitcoin ETF — have all expanded their crypto custody operations in 2026. Standard Chartered’s reported move accelerates that consolidation trend, positioning a globally systemically important bank as a direct competitor to specialist crypto custodians.
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