Standard Chartered Bank has announced that it has started offering custody services for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), including Dubai.
Dubai in fact is the largest city of the UAE, although it is not the political capital.
Standard Chartered
Standard Chartered Bank is a major British financial institution that operates worldwide.
It was founded in London in the very distant 1613, and it is listed on the stock exchange with the ticker STAN.
It has more than 800 billion dollars in assets under management, more than 80,000 employees, and a revenue exceeding 18 billion.
This is therefore a very important financial institution on a global level belonging to the most traditional finance.
Already since last year has started to take an interest in the crypto market, probably to follow the interest of its clients.
In 2023, he made a decidedly optimistic forecast for 2024, stating that this year the price of Bitcoin could reach $120,000.
In June of this year the bank declared its intention to launch a crypto trading desk in London, and in August announced that its virtual subsidiary bank in Hong Kong, Mox, had added ETF trading on Bitcoin and crypto to its investment platform.
The custody of Bitcoin in Dubai offered by Standard Chartered
Yesterday Standard Chartered published an official press release on its website announcing the launch of custody services for digital assets in the United Arab Emirates.
Note that the institute has its headquarters in London, but also has offices in Singapore and Dubai.
In the statement, it claims that its digital asset custody service in the United Arab Emirates has obtained a license from the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) within the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC).
The service will allow customers to safeguard their digital assets, and it has already been launched in the UAE. Initially, only Bitcoin and Ethereum will be supported, and the first customer is Brevan Howard Digital, the division dedicated to cryptocurrencies and digital assets of Brevan Howard.
In the coming months, they would like to add other digital assets as well, and extend their crypto custody services to other major financial centers.
The custodian services
Private citizens who own cryptocurrencies often prefer self-custody.
When it comes to personal property, self-custody makes more sense, whereas, for example, when it comes to corporate property, the choice of the custodian is riskier.
For this reason, companies often prefer reliable custodians for their cryptocurrencies, instead of self-custody, unless they are individual enterprises or small family businesses.
In this case, for example, Brevan Howard is a European hedge fund management company, so it is more than logical that it opts for a high-level custody service entrusted to professionals, and not for self-custody which could imply significant security and reliability risks.
Tendenzialmente saranno sempre di più i soggetti proprietari di criptovalute che affideranno la loro custodia a terzi esperti di questa tipologia di servizio, soprattutto se questi soggetti sono società con azionariato ampio o diffuso.
Generally, there will be more and more owners of cryptocurrencies who will entrust their custody to third parties who are experts in this type of service, especially if these subjects are companies with broad or widespread shareholding.
The custody of cryptocurrencies is not at all simple, given the risks it entails from the security side, and when it comes to, for example, storing large sums, it turns out to be more convenient to entrust it to expert professionals in the sector.
Dubai and crypto: Standard Chartered chooses Bitcoin custody
Dubai has now become one of the main crypto hubs in the world.
Certainly it is the main one in the Near and Middle East, and in Asia it rivals only with Singapore, although now many tech and crypto companies are preferring the Arab city.
It is so attractive that it even manages to move European companies. A famous case is Telegram, which indeed has its central legal headquarters right in Dubai.
The Emirati legislation favorable to crypto companies is due to a precise political choice, which aimed to specifically promote the development of this sector in the territory of the UAE.
Over the years, but still very quickly, a true ecosystem has developed particularly in Dubai around tech and crypto companies, favored by the good conditions created by the State for activities of this type.
It is worth noting that such a political choice is far from common in the rest of the world, and it is precisely for this reason that Dubai is proving to be so attractive from this point of view.
Elsewhere, such as in the European Union, crypto regulatory frameworks are indeed clear, but also somewhat stringent, to the point of not favoring the development of a similar ecosystem too much. In fact, in Europe, the main crypto hub remains Switzerland, which is not part of the EU.
It is therefore not at all a coincidence that even global giants like Standard Chartered are showing a lot of interest in Dubai’s crypto ecosystem, while other places like for example London, Singapore, or Hong Kong might already be falling a bit too far behind from this point of view.
