Standard Chartered and Coinbase announced on December 12, 2025 that they are widening a strategic partnership to build a suite of institutional-focused crypto services — a sign of growing collaboration between traditional banks and crypto exchanges to serve big-ticket clients. The two firms said the expanded effort will explore five core areas that institutional investors demand: trading, prime services, custody, staking and lending. In practice that means work on order execution, financing and custody solutions — plus staking and lending frameworks — designed for banks, funds and other large players that need institutional-grade controls and settlement processes. The initiative builds on an existing Singapore arrangement where Standard Chartered already provides banking rails that enable real-time Singapore dollar transfers to and from Coinbase. That linkage helped support Coinbase’s official expansion into Singapore’s institutional market on November 12, 2025. Standard Chartered also launched spot trading for Bitcoin and Ether for its institutional clients earlier in the year, underscoring the bank’s push to develop in-house crypto capabilities as demand grows. Each partner brings complementary strengths: Coinbase contributes its institutional trading platform and market access, while Standard Chartered supplies global payment rails, FX capabilities and a regulated bank compliance framework. Together they say they can give large clients the ability to trade, finance, stake and custody digital assets within familiar banking rules and procedures — an attractive proposition for institutions seeking regulated, lower-risk crypto exposure. The move comes amid a broader industry trend: other banks and prime brokers are either linking with crypto firms or building their own services to offer clients regulated trading and settlement pathways. For institutional traders, multiple regulated routes reduce single-point dependency and can help lower operational and counterparty risk. Neither Coinbase nor Standard Chartered disclosed a timeline or fee schedules. For now the partners plan to develop and test product ideas across the regions where each operates, with a focus on meeting institutional expectations for custody controls, credit and execution tools tied to bank-grade rails. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

#BTC