Standard Chartered’s crypto division partners with Ripple’s subsidiary

The goal of the collaboration is to offer global sub-custody

04.12.2023 - 10:25

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2 min

What’s new? Zodia Custody, Standard Chartered Bank’s crypto division, has partnered with Metaco, a fintech company owned by Ripple Labs. Both subsidiaries are in the business of providing storage services for digital assets. Zodia Custody CEO Julian Sawyer explained that the partnership will allow it to offer global sub-custodian services: where an institution contracts with another company to store funds.

CoinDesk’s material

What else is known? Sawyer refers to the partnership project as the third generation of crypto custody, in which several companies specializing in custody are linked into a single network. For example, if a Brazilian custodian institution wants to store assets in the UK but does not have a license from the local regulator, it can turn to Zodia Custody, which has all the necessary permits.

Zodia Custody, launched by Standard Chartered in 2021, is licensed by regulators in the UK, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Singapore.

Last February, it, along with 16 other crypto companies, participated in the creation of Travel Rule Universal Solution Technology (TRUST), a platform that helps establish whether transactions comply with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) requirements. The so-called Travel Rule or travel rule requires firms to hand over customer information when making transfers to identify suspicious transactions.

In July this year, Zodia acted as collateral custodian in the first non-cleared cryptocurrency trade by QCP Capital and SBI Alpha. In September, it launched a yield-generating crypto platform for institutional investors in partnership with OpenEden, which offers tokenized US Treasury bills.

Fintech company Ripple, the company behind the development of the payment protocol of the same name and the XRP token, bought Metaco in May this year. Back in July last year, Metaco partnered with France’s largest bank holding company BNP Paribas. Starting 2024, together with the largest British bank HSBC, Metaco will start offering digital asset custody services to institutional clients.

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