Standard Chartered launches spot Bitcoin and Ether trading in UAE

JUST IN: Standard Chartered launches spot Bitcoin and Ether trading for institutional clients in the UAE, becoming the first major global bank to offer institutional access in the region.

A 170 year old British bank is now selling spot Bitcoin in Dubai.

Standard Chartered launched spot Bitcoin and Ether trading for institutional clients in the UAE this morning, through its arm regulated in the Dubai International Financial Centre. That makes it the first major global bank to offer this in the region, and the first bank on the too big to fail list to do it anywhere with this setup.

And this wasn't a leap, it was a staircase. Custody in the UAE back in 2024, a banking deal with exchange CoinMENA in June, and now the actual trading desk, plugged straight into the bank's existing platforms. Meanwhile Capital. com and Revolut are queuing up for their own UAE licences behind it.

So picture the client here. Not a crypto bro, a pension fund, buying Bitcoin at seventy seven thousand dollars through the same terminal it uses for currencies. The wall between banking and crypto isn't cracking in Dubai. It's already gone.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.