Standard Chartered has completed its first digital asset prime brokerage trades with LMAX Group, testing a bank-backed model for institutional trading of Bitcoin and Ether.
The pilot follows recent institutional digital asset initiatives by both companies. Finance Magnates recently reported that LMAX Group introduced Kiosk, a platform allowing institutional clients to use digital assets as collateral for FX and CFD trading.
Earlier, Standard Chartered-backed Zodia Markets expanded its institutional business through correspondent banking partnerships and the acquisition of Elwood Capital Management's OTC trading operation.
LMAX Executes Standard Chartered's First Prime Trades
The pilot involved spot Bitcoin (XBT/USD) and Ether (XET/USD) trades with T+1 settlement through Standard Chartered's UK branch. The transactions marked Standard Chartered's first digital asset credit intermediation trades executed through a prime brokerage model, according to the companies.
They also said the bank is among the first global systemically important banks to complete such trades.
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The transactions were executed on LMAX Digital, LMAX Group's regulated institutional digital asset trading venue. Standard Chartered Prime Brokerage acted as the credit intermediary between counterparties, with settlement completed through the bank's digital asset custody platform in the Dubai International Financial Centre.
The missing piece in digital assets? Bank-grade credit intermediation.@StanChart has now executed its first digital asset prime brokerage trades with LMAX Group — a milestone for institutional market infrastructure.
— LMAX Group (@LMAX) July 1, 2026
A step towards enabling institutional-scale digital asset… pic.twitter.com/djnLoFn6Y7
Testing Covers Crypto Trading, Settlement Infrastructure
The pilot tested an integrated trading and settlement workflow combining LMAX Group's execution platform with Standard Chartered's client connectivity, trade matching, settlement and custody infrastructure. It also covered credit controls, margin management, trade booking, settlement and reporting.
According to the companies, the exercise showed how traditional financial infrastructure could operate with digital asset systems and will inform future work on institutional digital asset credit intermediation.
Alison Higgins, Head of Prime Services at Standard Chartered, said the pilot supports the bank's strategy to build an institutional digital asset platform covering "custody, trading and prime brokerage."
