MiCA:- Over a year after establishing its Luxembourg entity, Standard Chartered has finally obtained its MiCA lciense.
The tradfi giant made the annoucment on 29 June, ahead of the critical deadline of July 1 for the MiCA transition period.
Standard Chartered Director Of Digital Assets Emily A. informed, “Over the past year, we have been fully focused on securing our authorisation to provide digital asset custody services (which perhaps explains my relative silence on here).”
The MiCA licence enables Standard Chartered to offer regulated institutional digital asset custody and related services across Europe. The banking giant is also panning phased expansion into broader digital asset capabilities from its Luxembourg hub.
Standard Chartered Receives MiCA License
The MiCA license provides Standard Chartered with a regulatory passport to operate digital asset services throughout the EU. The move strengthens the bank’s strategy of building institutional-grade crypto and digital asset offerings in Europe.
Standard Chartered’s institutional digital asset platform currently provides services spanning across custody, trading, tokenisation, tokenised deposits, collateral mirroring and stablecoin infrastructure.
Through its venture Zodia Custody, the bank supports more than 75 cryptoassets and tokenised assets for institutional clients. Its Zodia Markets platform also supports T+0 institutional settlement, stablecoin payment orchestration, 70+ digital assets and 20+ fiat currencies.
In July 2025, Standard Chartered became the first global systemically important bank (G-SIB) to launch deliverable spot Bitcoin and Ether trading for institutional clients. The bank is also developing infrastructure for tokenised deposits, tokenised securities custody, and off-exchange crypto collateral mirroring.
To continue offering these services, the bank has decided to maintain Luxembourg as its European hub. This comes after many leading crypto firms have chosen the region, say, Coinbase has also announced Luxembourg as MiCA hub.
Interestingly, as per the official press release, the bank has also got future stablecoin capabilities. Luxembourg’s financial supervisory authority, Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) has also provided Electronic Money Institution (EMI) licence to Standard Chartered’s Luxembourg entity.
An EMI licence authorizes a company to issue electronic money, provide digital payment services, and facilitate money transfers under financial regulatory oversight.
Thus, Standard Chartered can now support regulated electronic money token (stablecoin) services as its offering expands.
Strengthening Its Digital Asset Business
The MiCA license approval comes as Standard Chartered has steadily increased its exposure to digital assets over the past few years. The bank has backed crypto custody, tokenization, and digital asset trading initiatives through its various business units and strategic partnerships.
By securing MiCA authorization, the bank joins a limited number of crypto firms who have been able to secure MiCA.
MiCA has become the European Union’s comprehensive regulatory framework for crypto assets. It provides a harmonized licensing regime, replacing fragmented national rules with a single framework for member states.
However, European Commission Advior Peter Kerstens recently said in an op-ed that Europe isn’t stopping at MiCA. The region is continously looking for other ways to regulate while supporting innovation.
Sneha Agrawal 
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