Standard Chartered’s SC Ventures and SBI Holdings to Forge Digital Asset Venture in UAE

In collaboration with the Japanese financial behemoth SBI Holdings, SC Ventures, the fintech investment branch of British bank Standard Chartered, plans to launch a “Digital Asset Joint Venture” investment business in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This partnership is a big step forward for financial technology and digital assets.

Ambitious Goals for the Joint Venture

In a recent press release dated November 9, Alex Manson, the CEO of SC Ventures, unveiled the objectives of the newly formed joint venture company. Manson stated that their mission is “[…] to make strategic and minority investments in areas such as market infrastructure, risk management, and compliance tools, DeFi, tokenization, consumer payments, and the metaverse.”

He underlined how the UAE’s burgeoning talent pool and facilities are contributing to its rising stature as a fintech powerhouse. Crucially, the joint venture will not limit itself to the local market; rather, it aims to investigate worldwide potential within the developing digital asset ecosystem.

A History of Digital Asset Pursuits

Standard Chartered has been making significant efforts to enter the digital asset space. The bank and the Dubai International Financial Centre inked a memorandum of agreement in May 2023, enabling the bank to offer digital asset custody services to its institutional clients globally.

Furthermore, Standard Chartered and SBI Holdings have worked together on Zodia, an institutional bitcoin custody platform that has opened for business in Hong Kong. Zodia, which was founded in 2021, has strengthened its position in the digital asset market by supporting 38 cryptocurrencies and growing its business to include operations in Australia, Singapore, and Japan.

In addition to actively investigating several facets of the digital economy, Standard Chartered has been deeply involved in the crypto custody industry. The bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers China collaborated in June to create a white paper that addressed the uses of digital money issued by central banks in the Greater Bay Area of China. This region, which includes Macao, Hong Kong, and Guangdong province, demonstrates the bank’s dedication to the changing digital financial environment.