Standard Chartered adds RLUSD custody in Dubai, plans LMAX collateral link
DeFi & Yields ·
The British bank's DIFC branch now holds Ripple's dollar-pegged token for institutional clients, with a separate arrangement in the works to let them pledge it as trading margin without moving the coins off its books.
Standard Chartered's Dubai International Financial Centre unit, regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority, has begun offering custody services for RLUSD, the stablecoin Ripple issues on the XRP Ledger, according to Decrypt. Custody here means the bank physically safeguards the tokens and carries legal accountability for them, while retaining the ability to oversee, restrict or control client holdings during that period.
Alongside custody, the bank has entered a planned tie-up with LMAX Group, a London-based currency and crypto trading venue, aimed at making RLUSD usable as margin on select LMAX products. The arrangement, which Standard Chartered describes as collateral mirroring, would keep the actual tokens parked at the bank while LMAX receives a corresponding record of their value to apply against a client's positions — meaning the coins themselves never leave the custodian. Because Standard Chartered sits among 29 banks the Financial Stability Board classifies as globally systemically important, subject to stricter capital requirements, a failure at the trading venue would not strand a client's underlying collateral there.
Waqar Chaudry, who oversees digital assets within the bank's securities services arm, said institutional clients want exposure to digital asset markets without sacrificing control over how their holdings are protected, per the bank's statement cited by Decrypt.
The move builds on a broader crypto custody push the bank started in Dubai in 2024, and follows its July milestone as the first globally systemic bank to allow direct institutional minting and redemption of Circle's USDC. RLUSD itself cleared Dubai's regulatory approval in June 2025, though Ripple only launched the token in December 2024 across Ethereum and the XRP Ledger. RLUSD's market capitalization has reached roughly $2.45 billion, still less than 1% of the overall stablecoin market, estimated at about $306 billion.
The LMAX leg of the arrangement has not launched. Standard Chartered says it still needs to finalize documentation, complete testing and secure regulatory sign-off, and has not given a timeline for when institutions could actually begin posting RLUSD as trading collateral. Developments around Ripple and its stablecoin infrastructure are being tracked more broadly at leviathan.news.