Standard Chartered plans to bring Zodia Custody customer service back into the digital assets unit of its Corporate and Investment Bank (CIB).
This restructuring could become official as early as this month. Then Zodia will only operate independently as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform for custody technology, according to Bloomberg's sources with insight.
From startup to independence to return
Standard Chartered launched Zodia Custody at the end of 2020 through its innovation department SC Ventures, together with Northern Trust.
Later, the custody institution brought in smaller investors, such as SBI Holdings, National Australia Bank, and Emirates NBD. Today, Zodia has approximately 150 employees in seven offices globally.
Zodia gained greater traction. In January 2026, Zodia became the first custodian to support AUDM, an Australian stablecoin pegged to the dollar.
The month after, the company launched Zodia Switch. With it, customers could swap assets directly on the platform without external pre-financing.
But Standard Chartered launched its own custody for digital assets in Luxembourg last year and also opened for institutional trading in cryptocurrencies separately.
The overlap between parent companies and subsidiaries made restructuring likely.
It remains unclear whether Standard Chartered has spoken with Zodia's minority shareholders.
Banks take custody in-house
The market for digital asset custody is now over $1 trillion. It is believed to reach $7 trillion by 2035, with an average annual growth rate of about 23.7%.
According to the 2026 EY-Parthenon survey, 73% of large investors plan to increase their digital assets this year.
The increasing demand is driving banks to invest more in in-house custody. State Street and BNY Mellon have built their own divisions for digital custody.
Morgan Stanley applied in February for a national trust bank license to manage and invest in crypto assets under government scrutiny.
Analysts see the restructuring as a turning point. Some believe that when a major bank moves crypto custody into the investment bank, it is no longer a battle between crypto and TradFi, but crypto becomes part of TradFi.
Zodia was initially built as an independent solution to test safely. That Zodia is now being reclaimed shows that the parent company sees digital assets as a real and profitable capital market business.
Others argue that more traditional banks are reclaiming digital functions from experiments to core operations. It is simply inefficient to run parallel services.
“…The executives finally realized that it is inefficient to do the same thing twice. Revolutionary,” writes a user on X.
What this says about independent crypto custody
The answer is becoming increasingly clear. Independent bank-supported custodians filled a specific role during 2020–2023, when uncertain regulations required an arm's length distance.
Now, regulations like MiCA in Europe and the GENIUS Act in the USA have reduced these barriers. Therefore, banks no longer need to have separate entities for digital assets.
“This reflects a trend where banks are reclaiming digital functions from attempts at regulated operations – thanks to regulations like MiCA and VARA,” the user adds.
Zodia's results show this. The technology continues to hold value as SaaS, but the custody of clients' assets, with the most trust and profit margin, returns to the parent bank.
It clearly shows what banks want to own and what they lease out.
Crypto-focused custodians like Coinbase Custody, BitGo, and Fireblocks still hold nearly half of the market globally.
Can they defend their share when the banking sector now wants to take custody for itself?