Standard Chartered has signed definitive agreements to acquire 100% of Zodia Custody, the digital asset custodian it helped create through its venture arm, SC Ventures.
The signing, confirmed on October 21, 2026, comes months after Zodia’s shareholders accepted the bank’s non-binding offer.
Regulators still need to approve the deal, and standard closing conditions apply. No financial terms have been disclosed.
How the deal is structured
The acquisition splits Zodia into two parts, each with a separate destination.
Zodia Custody’s regulated custody operations will be folded into Standard Chartered’s Financing and Securities Services division. That is the part of the bank that already handles safekeeping and servicing of traditional securities for institutional clients.
The software and infrastructure side will become a new entity called Zodia Solutions. It is expected to keep operating independently and offer its services to a broader range of financial institutions.
The process began with a non-binding offer from Standard Chartered, which Zodia’s shareholders accepted on May 18, 2026. Roughly five months passed between that handshake and the signed agreements.
From joint venture to full ownership
Zodia Custody launched in 2020 as a joint venture between SC Ventures and Northern Trust, another heavyweight in traditional custody banking.
Over time, SC Ventures came to hold nearly 70% of the company. The rest was spread across a group of minority investors that included Northern Trust, SBI Holdings, Emirates NBD, and National Australia Bank.
A 2023 financing round associated with Zodia Custody saw SBI Holdings raise $36 million.
Zodia built out a licensed footprint across the UK, the EU, the UAE, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia.
Standard Chartered’s broader digital asset push
In 2025, the bank secured a MiCA license in Luxembourg. MiCA, the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets framework, is the rulebook crypto firms need to follow to operate across the bloc.
The bank also plans to launch institutional custody services in Singapore by the end of 2026. Those services are expected to cover various digital assets as well as tokenized assets, meaning traditional instruments represented on a blockchain.
Bringing Zodia’s regulated operations inside the bank consolidates licenses, client relationships, and operational expertise under one corporate structure.
What this means
For institutional investors, the most direct implication is that a global bank will hold digital assets on its own balance sheet of responsibility, rather than through an affiliated but separate company.
The creation of Zodia Solutions is the more interesting wrinkle. By keeping the infrastructure business independent, Standard Chartered may be trying to have it both ways: owning the client-facing custody relationships while still selling the underlying technology to other institutions.
The acquisition still needs approval, and Zodia operates under licenses in six jurisdictions.
The Singapore launch planned for the end of 2026 will offer an early test of how Standard Chartered combines its in-house build with Zodia’s existing operations, covering digital assets and tokenized assets.
Disclosure: This article was edited by John Chen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.