Standard Chartered is integrating digital assets into its core banking businesses as commercial adoption begins to move beyond experimentation. The bank has expanded its capabilities across custody, tokenisation, settlement infrastructure and emerging payments while positioning itself to support new forms of digital money across both capital markets and cross-border payments. Rene Michau, global head of digital assets at Standard Chartered, said the bank has always viewed digital assets as an integrated proposition rather than a standalone business. What began with specialist capabilities in custody, tokenisation and digital asset markets is increasingly being incorporated into its investment banking, securities services, transaction banking and payments franchises as clients move from exploring the technology to evaluating practical commercial applications. As regulatory frameworks mature and institutional adoption broadens, clients are shifting from asking whether digital assets have a role in banking to where they can improve payments, treasury management, securities services and capital markets. For Standard Chartered, however, the challenge is not selecting a single technology or form of digital money. Michau and Mark Willis, global head of emerging Payments at Standard Chartered, argued that capital markets and payments are fundamentally different commercial systems. The bank is positioning itself across these developments while allowing client demand, commercial adoption and market structure, rather than technology alone, to determine where digital assets create value. Digital assets become part of the core bank Michau said Standard Chartered's digital asset strategy has never been about creating a separate digital asset bank. Instead, the objective has been to build new capabilities where innovation could move faster before integrating them into the bank's existing businesses. Rene Michau, Global Head of Digital Assets at Standard Chartered Willis said the same approach is evident within the bank’s payments business. The establishment of an emerging payments business alongside its established global payments franchise demonstrates that digital money is becoming part of Standard Chartered’s long-term payments strategy rather than an adjacent innovation programme. While conventional payment rails continue to support the vast majority of client transactions, the bank is investing in tokenised deposits, regulated stablecoins and new settlement networks because clients are expected to use different forms of digital money for different purposes rather than migrate to a single model. Mark Willis, Global Head of Emerging Payments at Standard Chartered Capital markets and payments require different forms of digital money The distinction between capital markets and payments underpins Standard Chartered's digital asset strategy. Although stablecoins and tokenised deposits are often presented as competing alternatives, Michau and Willis argued that they address fundamentally different commercial requirements. Willis said regulated stablecoins have gained momentum because they provide an interoperable settlement instrument that can move across institutions and jurisdictions before large-scale wholesale tokenised deposit networks are established. From a payments perspective, he described stablecoins primarily as a utility for transferring value, particularly across emerging market corridors where clients increasingly want to pay suppliers or receive funds using regulated digital dollars. The economics are different for treasury management and wholesale banking. Willis said corporate treasurers are unlikely to accumulate significant balances in non-interest-bearing stablecoins. Instead, they are expected to move liquidity into tokenised deposits or eventually tokenised money market funds that allow liquidity to remain within a digital environment while continuing to generate returns. Tokenised deposits therefore address a different requirement by improving liquidity management across a bank’s own network and supporting wholesale financial activity rather than everyday cross-border payments. Michau said the distinction becomes more pronounced in wholesale financial markets. Securities settlement, collateral management and repurchase transactions require substantial liquidity, capital efficiency and balance-sheet capacity that differ fundamentally from retail and commercial payment flows. While stablecoins have demonstrated their value as payment instruments, he argued that their current scale and reserve structures make them less suited to supporting wholesale capital markets at institutional volumes. Instead of expecting one form of digital money to replace another, Standard Chartered evaluates how each supports a particular market function. Tokenised deposits, wholesale settlement assets and regulated stablecoins therefore represent complementary components within different parts of the financial system rather than competing technologies seeking to dominate the same market. Building market infrastructure rather than backing a single model If payments are driving near-term commercial adoption, the longer-term challenge lies in how different forms of digital money interact across financial institutions. Rather than assuming one technology or platform will dominate, Standard Chartered is participating in multiple initiatives because each addresses a different element of the emerging financial architecture. Michau said the original vision of blockchain was to enable value to move across a shared global network without relying on intermediaries. In practice, however, institutional finance continues to depend on regulated intermediaries to provide governance, compliance, liquidity and risk management. The opportunity, he argued, is therefore not to eliminate intermediaries but to improve how regulated institutions exchange value across different infrastructures. That explains why Standard Chartered has taken positions across several parts of the ecosystem. Alongside its participation in Partior, the bank works with regulated stablecoin issuers including Circle and supports Anchorpoint, Hong Kong’s licensed stablecoin initiative. It is also evaluating infrastructure initiatives such as Agora and mBridge, which seek to provide the clearing and settlement capabilities required for different forms of digital money to move between financial institutions. Each initiative addresses a different layer of the emerging market infrastructure, ranging from digital money issuance and custody to messaging, settlement and interoperability. Standard Chartered has also translated its partnership with Circle into a client-facing capability through the launch of integrated access to USDC minting and redemption for eligible institutional clients. The service enables institutions to mint and redeem USDC through a single onboarding and banking relationship without requiring direct Circle accounts. Initially offered through the bank's Dubai International Financial Centre operations, the capability supports institutional use cases including on-chain settlement, treasury and liquidity management, illustrating how the bank is commercialising regulated stablecoin infrastructure alongside its broader digital asset strategy. Willis said the more fundamental challenge is institutional rather than technological. While public blockchains achieve interoperability because users trust a single issuer or protocol, financial institutions continue to operate through bilateral legal relationships, credit limits and counterparty risk frameworks. Building a multilateral settlement network therefore requires more than distributed ledger technology. It also requires governance, legal certainty and common operating rules, which explains why Standard Chartered is participating as a design partner in Swift’s shared ledger initiative while continuing its work through Partior and other industry platforms. Commercial adoption will determine where digital assets scale Despite growing interest in digital assets, Michau cautioned against assuming that market announcements alone indicate commercial adoption. He said Standard Chartered places greater emphasis on client engagement, transaction data and its own digital asset research when evaluating where to invest, arguing that relying solely on industry announcements risks drawing conclusions that are not supported by observable market activity. He said conversations with clients have become noticeably more sophisticated over the past year, particularly around stablecoins. Instead of asking whether digital assets have a future, clients are increasingly exploring specific applications across payments, treasury, securities services and capital markets. Those conversations, together with the bank’s own transaction experience and research capability, provide a more reliable indication of where commercial demand is emerging than public narratives alone. That commercial perspective also shapes the bank’s assessment of market structure. Michau argued that while stablecoins have expanded rapidly, their current scale and reserve requirements make them unsuitable for supporting wholesale capital markets settlement. Rather than assuming stablecoins will eventually replace existing market infrastructure, Standard Chartered evaluates each form of digital money according to whether it can deliver the liquidity, capital efficiency and institutional participation required for different financial markets. Willis illustrated the point using repurchase transactions, noting that banks would still need to convert stablecoins into balance-sheet cash, creating additional operational and capital requirements. In that context, he expects wholesale tokenised deposits to remain better suited to large-value institutional settlement while stablecoins continue to develop primarily as cross-border payment instruments. Regulation, AI and the next stage of digital finance As digital payment infrastructure matures, artificial intelligence (AI), smart contracts and eventually agentic commerce could automate how transactions are initiated, authorised, executed and reconciled, allowing payment flows to become part of wider commercial processes rather than standalone financial events. Willis said the next phase of payments is likely to be driven less by moving money faster than by making payments increasingly programmable. While those applications remain at an early stage, Willis said banks need to begin building the underlying infrastructure now if they are to support increasingly automated forms of commerce as they emerge. He added that moving value in real time is likely to become an expected capability rather than a competitive advantage. Michau distinguished between the innovation occurring within decentralised finance and the requirements of regulated financial markets. The longer-term opportunity, he suggested, lies in connecting institutional digital asset infrastructure with public blockchain networks without creating opportunities for regulatory arbitrage or weakening the governance, compliance and risk management standards expected of regulated banks. That balance is becoming increasingly important as stablecoins expand beyond US dollars. He said interest in local-currency stablecoins is growing among central banks, particularly in emerging markets concerned about monetary sovereignty and the implications of a market where US dollar stablecoins account for the overwhelming majority of outstanding issuance. He expects domestic stablecoins to coexist with international settlement currencies, creating demand for real-time foreign exchange (FX) capabilities and interoperability across multiple forms of digital money rather than replacing existing wholesale FX markets. The bank has also continued to expand its role in central bank digital currency infrastructure. Standard Chartered China recently became one of the first foreign banks to sign the Cross-border e-CNY Transfer Services (CBETS) Direct Participant Agreement, giving it direct access to infrastructure supporting cross-border digital RMB transactions. The initiative builds on the bank's earlier participation in China's e-CNY pilot and the mBridge project, reinforcing its strategy of investing across multiple forms of digital money while improving clients' access to cross-border renminbi payment, trade and treasury solutions. Positioning for multiple futures Standard Chartered's digital asset strategy reflects a view that digital finance is unlikely to converge around a single technology, settlement network or form of money. Instead, capital markets and payments are expected to evolve along different paths, each requiring infrastructure designed for its own commercial, liquidity and regulatory requirements. That explains why the bank is investing simultaneously across custody, tokenisation, stablecoins, settlement infrastructure, emerging payments and market connectivity. Rather than backing one technology over another, it is building optionality across multiple forms of digital money and market infrastructure while recognising that different client needs require different solutions. Ultimately, the bank expects commercial adoption, not technological ambition, to determine how digital finance develops. As clients become more sophisticated and practical use cases continue to emerge, Standard Chartered's strategy is to continue investing across multiple forms of digital money, market infrastructure and banking services while allowing market demand rather than technological preference to determine where those capabilities ultimately scale.
