Standard Chartered places crypto prime brokerage in SC Ventures to ease Basel III burden

Beincrypto reported that Standard Chartered plans to establish a crypto prime brokerage within its venture arm, SC Ventures, to reduce Basel III capital burdens. According to the report, the prime-brokerage offering would provide financing, custody and trading services to institutional clients and is expected to sit outside the bank’s core corporate and investment banking division.

Under Basel III rules finalized in late 2022, banks face a 1,250% risk weighting for “permissionless” crypto assets such as Bitcoin and Ether, compared with 400% applied to some venture capital investments; routing crypto activity through a venture-style unit could materially reduce the capital charge.

The move aligns with the bank’s wider crypto strategy, which includes backing Zodia Custody and Zodia Markets, offering spot crypto trading to institutional clients last year, and work on Project37C, described as a “light financing and markets platform” covering custody, tokenization and market access.

Key Topics

Crypto, Standard Chartered, Sc Ventures, Basel Iii, Ethereum, Bitcoin