OKX Taps Standard Chartered to Deliver Bank-Level Security for Institutional Investors in Europe

OKX has strengthened its European footprint with Standard Chartered.

OKX has announced the expansion of its partnership with Standard Chartered Bank into the European Economic Area (EEA), as it extended a collaboration that first began in the United Arab Emirates earlier this year. The move introduces OKX’s collateral mirroring programme to institutional clients across Europe, which allows users to hold their assets securely with Standard Chartered, a Global Systemically Important Bank (G-SIB), while maintaining corresponding balances on OKX for trading purposes.

The arrangement enables institutions to benefit from both bank-grade custody and direct access to digital asset markets, effectively reducing counterparty risk and enhancing trading efficiency.

OKX Expansion

With the latest collaboration, Standard Chartered has become the first and only G-SIB to partner directly with a crypto exchange. OKX said the expansion depicts growing regulatory confidence in the model and indicates a push toward aligning crypto market infrastructure with established financial standards. The partnership’s rollout in the EEA is expected to provide institutional clients with a unified framework for secure, compliant, and scalable digital asset management across Europe.

Standard Chartered’s Global Head of Financing and Securities Services, Margaret Harwood-Jones, said the initiative combines the bank’s existing custody infrastructure with OKX’s regulatory framework to ensure “the highest standards of security and compliance for institutional clients in Europe.”

The exchange also highlighted that the partnership builds on its long-term commitment to Europe, supported by its Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) license.

From EU Investigations to US Relaunch

In March, Bloomberg had reported that OKX’s decentralized trading and self-custody platforms are reportedly under scrutiny by European regulators after being linked to the laundering of $1.5 billion stolen in the Bybit hack by North Korea’s Lazarus Group. The exchange denied the allegations, even as the report suggested that it may risk losing the MiCA license granted earlier this year.

After regulatory challenges in Europe, OKX made a push to re-establish itself in the United States. In April, the exchange announced it was reopening its US crypto platform and introducing a multi-chain Web3 wallet, following a $505 million settlement with the Department of Justice earlier this year.

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