Standard Chartered is moving to buy out the crypto custody business it helped create, acquiring the customer-facing operations of Zodia Custody and folding them directly into the bank’s own digital-asset division.
The London-headquartered banking giant co-founded Zodia Custody in 2020 alongside Northern Trust. Now it wants the whole thing, or at least the parts that matter most to institutional clients.
What the deal looks like
Standard Chartered plans to absorb Zodia Custody’s client-facing custody activities into its Corporate and Investment Banking division.
The bank is reportedly considering a buyout of minority shareholders in Zodia, including SBI Holdings and Northern Trust. That would give Standard Chartered consolidated control over the venture it has been building for nearly five years.
Zodia Custody itself won’t disappear entirely. The plan calls for the company to continue operating as a separate Software-as-a-Service platform, essentially licensing its technology stack while Standard Chartered handles the actual custody relationships with institutional clients.
Zodia Custody has raised approximately $18.5 million in Series A funding since its founding and currently employs about 150 people across seven global offices.
Why this matters for the crypto custody race
State Street and BNY Mellon have both made significant moves into digital-asset custody, creating a race among legacy financial institutions to capture what’s expected to become a massive market as more institutional capital flows into crypto.
Standard Chartered has also been expanding its digital trading capabilities. The bank recently launched Bitcoin and Ether trading services aimed specifically at institutional clients. Bringing custody in-house creates a cleaner integration between trading and safekeeping.
The regulatory tailwind
The EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation, known as MiCA, has created a licensing framework that favors established financial institutions with existing compliance infrastructure. In the UK, regulators have been developing their own digital-asset oversight regime.
Northern Trust’s apparent willingness to sell its stake is also telling. The Chicago-based asset servicing giant co-founded Zodia but may have concluded that running crypto custody through a joint venture creates more operational complexity than simply partnering with or outsourcing to another provider.
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