For a bank with a 160-year history built on connecting the world’s emerging markets to the global economy, Standard Chartered’s aggressive foray into digital assets might appear to be a radical departure. Yet, for Renee Michau, Global Head of Digital Assets, the strategy is firmly rooted in the bank’s defining heritage.
Michau, who directs the strategy from Dubai, argues that the entire digital asset ecosystem—from cryptocurrencies and stablecoins to tokenised assets and liabilities—is simply the next evolution of borderless economic activity. He characterises the space as a “non-jurisdictional emerging market,” a concept that anchors the bank’s entire approach.
A familiar nexus of complexity
The bank’s strategy is designed to leverage its extensive experience navigating regulatory complexity and market volatility across its global footprint. Michau highlights the striking similarities between operating in traditional emerging markets and the digital space.
“Throughout our history we’ve connected emerging markets with the global economy, and we’ve sat at that nexus between the economic activity across boundaries,” Michau explains. “This is no different. This is just a non-jurisdictional emerging market.”
He contends that the bank is uniquely positioned due to its institutional knowledge of managing risk in nascent systems.
“If you look at the common elements between an emerging market and digital assets, you’ve got regulation, in some cases you’ve got volatility, you’ve got weekend activity that can affect prices, you’ve got infrastructure that is different to traditional,” he notes. “We’ve got a lot of experience at dealing with all of those things.”
Integrated strategy
Michau’s mandate is to drive the strategy across the Investment Bank, SC Ventures, and the Wealth and Retail business, ensuring it is commercially led and fully integrated into the bank’s core operations. This conscious decision avoids the creation of a siloed unit operating parallel to the main business.
“We want the business leaders to actually own the strategy,” he says. “It’s critical that it’s integrated and it’s commercially and client focused.”
This integrated strategy has manifested in the creation of two key subsidiaries through SC Ventures: Zodia Custody and Zodia Markets. While these entities operate with their own commercial objectives and dedicated licenses to serve the institutional crypto-native market—with Zodia Custody handling over 70 currencies—the technology and lessons learned are accelerated back into the licensed bank.
The main Security Services business, for example, offers custody for highly regulated assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum, but it utilises technology built in Zodia to ensure quicker time-to-market. Similarly, trading is executed through the established FX model for existing clients, while Zodia Markets caters to firms trading a broader variety of assets, including more than 20 US dollar stablecoins, seeing significant corporate interest.
Rationality over emotion
Michau insists that the bank’s methodical progression in digital assets is driven by sober commercial analysis, not ideological zeal. He explains that getting the bank’s trading desk live took a patient three years of internal and regulatory work, a process that required gradual upskilling.
“I often say you can’t learn to ride a bike by looking at it… So, we learned to ride the bike, then we were ready to take the training wheels off. Then we got authorised.”
To ensure the entire bank is competent, it has partnered with Oxford University to put more than 300 decision-makers through a rigorous 70-hour course on digital assets, ensuring all conversations are “in the context of understanding rather than being performative”.
Michau concludes that the overarching principle remains simple: “I try and make sure that we’re just acting like bankers and using data and making rational decisions around how to do it. Because I think there’s a lot of emotion around this topic and that’s not constructive.”
The $2trn Question
Looking forward, Michau identifies stablecoins as a critical focus area, highlighting their shift from mere crypto settlement tools to genuine real-world payment solutions. The bank is active in the space, having participated in the stablecoin sandbox in Hong Kong.
Michau references Standard Chartered’s full-time sell-side research, led by analyst Geoff Kendrick, which – at the time of interview — offers a unique institutional perspective on the market. The research report predicts that the stablecoin market cap, currently around $2.85bn, will surge to approximately $2trn by the end of 2028.
Standard Chartered defines its ongoing role not as a competitor to existing exchanges, but as the essential middle layer ensuring safe and compliant capital flow.
“We see our role as that connector, that bridge between the digital assets and crypto ecosystems and the traditional economy,” Michau concludes. “We’re bringing our regulators and communities on the journey and we’re going where our clients are going to be.”
Renee Michau, Global Head of Digital Assets at Standard Chartered, was speaking to Capital Pioneer at Sibos 2025 in Frankfurt.
