In a major step toward institutional crypto adoption, OKX and Standard Chartered have expanded their partnership to the European Economic Area (EEA), enabling professional clients to trade and custody digital assets through a compliant and secure infrastructure. This expansion, announced on October 15, 2025, builds on a successful pilot phase launched earlier in 2025 in the UAE, where a similar setup allowed tokenized money-market funds and cryptocurrencies to be used as collateral without moving assets onto an exchange.
The collaboration is anchored on OKX's collateral mirroring programme, which lets institutional investors mirror their off-exchange assets held with Standard Chartered and use those mirrored holdings for trading on OKX's platform. Erald Ghoos, CEO of OKX Europe, emphasized, "This partnership strengthens institutional trust by clearly separating execution and custody." Institutional clients can custody assets securely off-exchange with Standard Chartered acting as an independent, regulated custodian, ensuring transparency, compliance, and operational efficiency.
A key component is OKX's MiCA (Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation) licensing framework, which provides a regulatory foundation for serving institutions within the EEA. Margaret Harwood-Jones, Global Head of Financing and Securities Services at Standard Chartered, highlighted, "This expansion leverages our established custody infrastructure alongside OKX's regulatory framework to ensure the highest standards of security and compliance for institutional clients in Europe." The partnership aims to address persistent institutional concerns around custody, compliance, and counterparty risk, offering a streamlined, end-to-end solution for banks, hedge funds, and asset managers.
The rollout will begin immediately and expand gradually across Europe, signaling a maturation of crypto infrastructure and bridging the gap between traditional finance and decentralized markets.
