Standard Chartered has executed its first digital asset-prime brokerage trades with LMAX Group, a milestone in building institutional market infrastructure for crypto.
With this move, the bank became one of the first Global Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs) to test a prime brokerage model for digital assets within established risk, compliance and market frameworks.
The pilot covered spot Bitcoin (XBT/USD) with T+1 settlement through Standard Chartered’s UK branch. These were the bank’s first digital asset credit intermediation deals under a prime brokerage structure.
The transactions ran on LMAX Digital, LMAX Group’s regulated institutional venue, with Standard Chartered Prime Brokerage acting as credit intermediary between counterparties. Settlement completed through the bank’s digital asset custody platform in the Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC).
Prime brokerage has supported equities and foreign exchange for decades, providing institutions with a single counterparty for credit, execution and settlement. Crypto has been missing that layer. As capital moves away from direct exchange access, the gap has widened: By 2025, flows through prime brokers and OTC desks grew at more than 10 times the rate of flows to exchanges.
A large-scale digital asset prime brokerage needs a counterparty with the governance, risk discipline and credit capacity to underwrite institutional trades. Most global banks have partnered with crypto-native firms or stayed on the sidelines.
Standard Chartered said its approach is different: the bank steps in as a credit intermediary on its own balance sheet, with LMAX Group providing the regulated execution infrastructure under it.
In short, a bank brings its own balance sheet to digital assets instead of renting someone else’s.
What the Standard Chartered pilot validated
The transactions confirmed core controls across credit, margin, risk management, trade booking, settlement and reporting and demonstrated that the model operated within existing regulatory frameworks.
The test brought together LMAX Group’s execution and matching technology with the bank’s client connection, electronic messaging, trade matching and an early validation of netting approaches. It provided an insight into how traditional and digital asset infrastructure can work as one workflow.
The two firms describe the pilot project as a step toward a roadmap for scalable, institutional-grade market infrastructure.
It builds on digital asset trading Standard Chartered, launched in 2025.
“This pilot is part of our wider strategy to build a comprehensive institutional-grade digital asset platform spanning custody, trading and prime brokerage,” said Alison Higgins, Head of Prime Services at Standard Chartered. “As demand accelerates, we are helping our Prime Brokerage clients capture new opportunities backed by the risk management, control and balance sheet strength they expect from a G-SIB.”
David Mercer, CEO of LMAX Group, framed the trade as a solution to a structural gap. “The lack of credit counterparties with robust balance sheets on the scale that we see in traditional finance has been a critical missing mechanism in the digital asset market to date,” he said. “This is a great example of the impending convergence of TradFi and digital assets for a future across capital markets.”