Standard Chartered has begun offering direct Bitcoin and Ether trading to wealthy clients in the United Arab Emirates, allowing them to buy the digital assets through their existing bank accounts.
The service is operated through a closed-loop model, with Standard Chartered managing both custody and settlement internally. Clients therefore do not need to set up or use separate cryptocurrency wallets to hold the assets.
The bank’s in-house structure combines the trading process with the handling of the digital assets and the completion of transactions. It is designed to provide clients with access to Bitcoin and Ether through the bank’s existing relationship with them, rather than requiring them to work with a separate crypto platform or wallet provider.
The launch follows licensing approval in Dubai, which has enabled Standard Chartered to extend its digital-asset services to affluent UAE customers. The bank had previously provided digital-asset offerings for institutional clients in the United Kingdom and the UAE.
The move gives wealthy UAE clients access to two of the largest digital assets directly through Standard Chartered’s banking infrastructure. Bitcoin and Ether are the two assets specified in the new service.
Standard Chartered’s decision reflects an expansion of its existing digital-assets activity beyond institutional services. In the UAE, the new offering is aimed at wealthy individuals, while the bank’s earlier digital-asset work had focused on institutional clients.
By keeping custody and settlement within the bank’s own closed-loop system, Standard Chartered has removed the requirement for customers to manage separate crypto wallets as part of the trading process. The service is backed by the licensing approval secured in Dubai.
