Standard Chartered Appointed as OKX’s Institutional Custodian in the EEA

Standard Chartered, a prominent global banking institution, is strengthening its partnership with cryptocurrency exchange OKX, becoming its institutional custodian in the European Economic Area (EEA).

In collaboration with OKX, Standard Chartered has launched a collateral mirroring program in the EEA, permitting local institutional clients to hold their crypto assets directly under Standard Chartered’s custody. This initiative was announced on Wednesday.

The launch signifies an extension of a pilot program initially introduced in Dubai in April, aiming to allow institutions to retain their assets with a globally systemically important bank (G-SIB) while mirroring the balances into OKX for trading purposes.

This extension in the EEA underscores OKX’s dedication to Europe, particularly after the exchange obtained a Maltese license under Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework in early 2025.

How does the program operate?

Prior to collaborating with Standard Chartered, OKX’s institutional clients typically stored their crypto on the exchange, while fiat transactions were facilitated through regular banking partners.

Although OKX’s primary custody solution was its in-house option, the exchange also permitted institutions to engage third-party custodians, such as Copper or Komainu, if they chose to hold assets off-exchange.

With the integration of Standard Chartered, OKX’s institutional clients can directly manage their assets with a significant regulated bank, while OKX can mirror those assets into its trading infrastructure.

Building trust after October’s flash crash

The partnership between OKX and Standard Chartered is vital for fostering trust in the crypto ecosystem, particularly in light of the market turbulence in October, where exchanges experienced $20 billion in liquidations on a single day.

Binance, the largest crypto exchange globally by trading volume, has encountered considerable scrutiny since the crash, revealing the weaknesses of its price oracles and attributing investor losses amounting to millions of dollars to its platform.

Related: Centralized exchanges face claims of massive liquidation undercounts

“Recent incidents have revived the ‘Wild West’ narrative surrounding crypto, but collaborations like ours with Standard Chartered exemplify the progress the industry has made,” OKX Europe CEO Erald Ghoos shared with Cointelegraph.

“We take pride in partnering with the first and only G-SIB that is directly integrated with a crypto exchange, demonstrating that regulated, secure, and transparent models are the future of digital assets,” he remarked.