Standard Chartered lets UAE clients trade bitcoin and ether directly from bank accounts

Standard Chartered has launched a service in the United Arab Emirates that lets affluent clients buy and sell bitcoin (BTC) and ether (ETH) directly through their bank accounts, the British bank said in a press release issued in Singapore on Oct. 14. The bank described it as a global first for Standard Chartered and the first cryptocurrency trading offering by an international bank in the UAE.

No wallet needed, and the coins stay inside the bank

Clients place orders from their existing Standard Chartered U.S. dollar or dirham accounts, without setting up a separate wallet or signing up with an outside exchange. Execution, custody and settlement all take place within the bank under what it calls a closed-loop model, which the bank said reduces exposure to third-party wallet risks.

That design comes with limits. According to the product page of the bank's UAE unit, crypto bought through the bank cannot be transferred out, and outside holdings cannot be moved in. Only market orders are available, executed through a request for quote (RFQ) in which the bank holds the price for six seconds. After six seconds the client receives a refreshed quote, and executed orders cannot be cancelled. There are no separate trading or custody fees, but the bank said it charges a markup on the quote it receives from its liquidity provider. Trading is available 24/7 on the SC Mobile app, and sale proceeds are credited to the chosen account in real time.

The gate is "Professional Investor" status

The service is first available only to UAE clients the bank classifies as Professional Investors. To complete registration, a client's investment risk profile must meet the bank's requirements, and their tax residency information and Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) declaration must be up to date. Term deposit accounts, joint accounts and accounts in currencies other than dollars or dirhams cannot be used to fund trades or receive sale proceeds. The bank said it plans to expand to other markets over time but gave no timetable.

The service is regulated by Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), which licensed the bank's UAE entity for broker-dealer services under reference number VL/26/08/003. It was built jointly by the bank's Wealth and Retail Banking and Corporate and Investment Banking businesses, together with Zodia Markets, which is backed by the bank's venture arm SC Ventures.

"Clients are increasingly looking not only for access, but also for the security, trust and confidence that comes from investing through a regulated and trusted institution."

Samir Subberwal, Global Head, Wealth Solutions, Retail Products, Data & Analytics, Standard Chartered

From ETFs and derivatives to spot trading

Until now, Standard Chartered had offered affluent clients crypto price exposure only through cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on its cash equities trading platform, structured products and over-the-counter derivatives. The new service extends that to buying and selling the coins themselves. Rola Abu Manneh, chief executive for the UAE, Middle East and Pakistan, cited the country's forward-looking approach to innovation and strong regulatory environment as reasons for choosing the UAE, and said it is one of the bank's four global wealth hubs.

The bank presented the service as part of a broader digital assets business spanning custody, trading and tokenisation, supported by SC Ventures' Zodia Markets and tokenisation platform Libeara. Two days earlier, on Oct. 12, it announced that its Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) branch had begun institutional custody of Ripple's dollar stablecoin RLUSD. That service is for institutions and supervised by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA), while the new one is aimed at affluent individuals under a VARA license.

The product page also includes a basic fact sheet for each coin. It lists bitcoin as issued on Jan. 3, 2009, with a maximum supply of 21 million BTC, and ether as issued on July 30, 2015, with no fixed maximum supply. For market capitalization, circulating supply and largest historical drawdown, it links to CoinMarketCap and Yahoo Finance, and the bank notes that it does not verify or guarantee external data and that the information is not investment advice.

As of 8:37 p.m. KST on Oct. 14, bitcoin traded at $83,440 and ether at $2,503 on Binance, both down around 0.1% over 24 hours. At the same time, bitcoin traded at 112.52 million won and ether at 3,377,000 won on Upbit's Korean won market. The kimchi premium (the gap between prices on Korean exchanges and global markets) for bitcoin on Upbit stood at about 0.57%, based on Coinyong's price data.