Standard Chartered, a serious global banking group, is deepening its ties with cryptocurrency exchange OKX and becoming its institutional custodian within the European Economic Area (EEA).
Standard Chartered and OKX have launched a collateral mirroring program within the EEA, allowing local institutional clients to carry their cryptocurrencies directly in Standard Chartered's custody, OKX announced on Wednesday.
The launch represents an expansion of a pilot project originally launched in Dubai in April that goals to enable institutions to carry their assets at a world systemically vital bank (G-SIB) while mirroring balances in OKX for trading.
The expansion of this system within the EEA strengthens OKX's commitment to Europe after the exchange received a Maltese license under the European Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework in early 2025.
How does this system work?
Before the cope with Standard Chartered, OKX's institutional customers largely kept their cryptocurrencies on the exchange, while fiat transactions were processed through regular banking partners.
While OKX's default custody option was an in-house solution, the exchange also allowed institutions to make use of third-party custodians, including Copper or Komainu, in the event that they preferred to carry assets outside of the exchange.
Source: Erns CEO Ernald Gives
By integrating Standard Chartered, OKX's institutional clients will have the option to carry their assets directly with a serious regulated bank, while OKX will have the option to reflect these assets back into its trading system.
Growing confidence after the flash crash in October
OKX's collaboration with Standard Chartered is crucial to growing confidence within the crypto ecosystem amid October's market turmoil, when exchanges suffered $20 billion in liquidations on Friday.
Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange by trading volume, has faced a large controversy because the crash, highlighting the vulnerabilities of its price oracles and blaming the platform for thousands and thousands of dollars in investor losses.
“Recent events have reignited the ‘Wild West’ narrative around crypto, but partnerships like ours with Standard Chartered show how far the industry has come,” Erald Ghoos, CEO of OKX Europe, told Cointelegraph.
“We are proud to partner with the primary and only G-SIB to be directly integrated right into a crypto exchange, proving that regulated, secure and transparent models are the longer term of digital assets,” he said.
