Standard Chartered has launched direct bitcoin and ether trading for wealthy clients in the United Arab Emirates, the bank said in its announcement on October 14, 2026.
The London-headquartered bank (STAN) says it is the first international bank to offer direct crypto trading in the UAE, and the first time it has offered crypto trading directly to wealthy clients in any market. Both claims are the bank’s own.
At launch the service is open only to clients classified as professional investors, a regulatory category with thresholds for investment knowledge and liquid net worth. The bank did not disclose the specific thresholds.
Custody and settlement run inside the bank’s own system, a closed-loop model, so clients do not need separate crypto wallets or third-party trading platforms. The service was built with Zodia Markets, a firm backed by the bank’s SC Ventures unit, and combines its wealth and retail banking arm with its corporate and investment banking arm.
Standard Chartered said it has licensing approval from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA). That regulator oversees the new service; the bank’s institutional spot trading desk, which opened through its Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) entity on September 3, 2026, sits under a separate regulator, the Dubai Financial Services Authority.
The launch is the latest step in a build-out that started with a digital-asset custody business in September 2024 and continued with the bank becoming the first Global Systemically Important Bank to offer deliverable spot trading in BTC and ETH in the UK in July 2025. Standard Chartered already gives eligible clients access to crypto exchange-traded funds, structured products and over-the-counter derivatives, and it said in January that stablecoin flows could drain $500 billion from US regional banks by 2028.
Trades settle in bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) only. The bank plans to expand the service to other markets but gave no timetable.
