Standard Chartered offers Dubai custody for Ripple RLUSD

The bank’s Dubai branch will hold the dollar stablecoin on the XRP Ledger for institutions and is working with LMAX on a collateral link that is not yet live.

Blue Standard Chartered sign above glass entrance doors and window ads with Chinese text.

Photo: Ricky36 (CC0 1.0), via Wikimedia Commons (source)

Standard Chartered said Monday, Oct. 12, that its Dubai arm will custody Ripple's RLUSD, a dollar-linked stablecoin that runs on the XRP Ledger, for institutional clients under the bank's regulated setup, according to CoinDesk and The Block.

The product lets eligible customers keep RLUSD with a large bank rather than on an exchange wallet, CoinDesk reported. The Block said the bank is also lining up work with Ripple and LMAX Group so tokens parked at Standard Chartered could later support certain LMAX trades through a collateral mirroring approach.

Collateral link not live yet

In an email to CoinDesk, the bank said it intends to team with Ripple and LMAX — a venue used for FX and digital-asset trading — so clients could post RLUSD held in bank custody as margin on LMAX without shipping the tokens to the platform. CoinDesk reported that step still needs paperwork, technical tests, regulator sign-off and internal bank approvals before it goes live.

That split — bank holds the asset, venue recognizes its value — is aimed at institutions that want stablecoin margin but prefer not to leave balances on a trading platform, CoinDesk said. Waqar Chaudry, who runs digital assets, securities services and transaction services at Standard Chartered, told the outlet that clients want market access without weakening how assets are protected or how risk is handled.

Broader Ripple and bank context

Ripple put $150 million into LMAX in January to push RLUSD deeper into that group's systems, including institutional trading rails, CoinDesk reported. The Block framed the LMAX track as a way for RLUSD held at the bank to back selected LMAX products once approvals clear.

Standard Chartered has been widening digital-asset custody elsewhere. CoinDesk said the bank last week described plans for Singapore clients to custody some cryptocurrencies, stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets after it finished buying Zodia Custody earlier this year, and that in August it began distributing one of the two Hong Kong-regulated stablecoins, which CoinDesk said made it the first bank to do so. The same report put the bank's assets under management near $450 billion.

What's next

Dubai RLUSD custody is available now to qualifying institutional accounts, per CoinDesk and The Block. The LMAX collateral arrangement remains contingent on testing, documentation, regulatory steps and Standard Chartered's own approvals.

Sources

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