Two of the most prolific enterprise investors in blockchain and digital assets, Standard Chartered bank and Japan’s SBI Holdings, are collaborating on building a digital asset ecosystem.
Last month there was a formal announcement about a fintech collaboration between the bank’s Singapore subsidiary SC Ventures and SBI to work together to create ‘ecosystems’ of startups. The sectors included were internet technology, fintech, artificial intelligence and big data, blockchain and crypto-assets.
In an investor presentation today, SBI said the collaboration includes the UK group headquarters of Standard Chartered and would cover “BaaS-related (blockchain as a service) businesses and digital asset fields (DeFi, Metaverse, Web3.0, etc.) in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.”
During the same presentation, SBI also mentioned a digital asset custody joint venture between a ‘global UK enterprise’ and two SBI subsidiaries, SBI Digital Assets Holdings and crypto exchange SBI VC Trade. Standard Chartered currently owns 95% of UK-regulated digital asset custodian Zodia. When we asked Standard Chartered to confirm whether this deal is with Zodia, they declined to comment at this time.
Last month, Zodia received a $15 million cash injection from founders Standard Chartered and Northern Trust, which owns almost 5%, bringing the total investment to just under $30 million.
Update: the cash injection was previously incorrectly stated as $30 million
