Expanding Our Partnership with Standard Chartered into the European Economic Area

Written by Erald Ghoos, CEO for OKX Europe

We’re expanding our partnership with Standard Chartered into the European Economic Area (EEA).

When we first partnered with Standard Chartered in the UAE earlier this year, we launched our collateral mirroring programme—a first-of-its-kind service that allows institutional clients to keep their assets securely with a Global Systemically Important Bank (G-SIB) while mirroring those balances into OKX for trading. This innovation gives clients the best of both worlds: bank-grade custody and seamless exchange access, helping them reduce counterparty risk, strengthen asset security, and trade with greater confidence.

Now, we are extending these services to all our customers across the EEA. The expansion highlights not only Standard Chartered’s confidence as the first and only G-SIB to work directly with a crypto exchange, but also the growing trust of regulators in this model. It marks a major step forward in aligning digital asset markets with the highest standards of traditional finance—bringing greater assurance and credibility for institutions and clients alike.

By bringing this partnership into the EEA, we’re making it possible for clients to trade and secure their digital assets on a truly global scale. For us, this isn’t just an expansion. It’s the next step in building a safer, more reliable ecosystem for digital assets in Europe.

At Standard Chartered, Margaret Harwood-Jones, their Global Head of Financing and Securities Services, captured it well when she said that this expansion is about leveraging their established custody infrastructure alongside our regulatory framework to ensure the highest standards of security and compliance for institutional clients in Europe. That’s exactly what we’re striving for, meeting the needs of institutions in a regulated and trusted environment.

From our side at OKX, the combination of our MiCA license and this custody partnership represents our long-term commitment to Europe. MiCA provides clarity and certainty in regulation, which gives institutional clients the confidence to deploy capital securely. By pairing this with innovative solutions like collateral mirroring, we’re helping clients trade more efficiently in a safeguarded environment.

For us, it all comes down to trust, regulation, and innovation. With Standard Chartered as a partner, we’re bringing those principles to life in one of the world’s most important markets.