Standard Chartered launches RLUSD custody in Dubai for institutions

Standard Chartered has started holding Ripple's dollar stablecoin RLUSD for institutional clients in Dubai. The bank said the service went live on 12 October 2026, runs through its Dubai branch, and covers only RLUSD issued on the XRP Ledger.

Ripple announced the launch in a press statement the same day. Standard Chartered runs the service from its Dubai International Financial Centre branch, which the Dubai Financial Services Authority regulates. Eligible clients can store the token with the bank instead of holding it themselves.

What the bank is offering

Custody is the simple part. Standard Chartered safekeeps the RLUSD a client owns, much as it would hold cash or securities for a large institution. The client keeps ownership. The bank holds the keys.

Waqar Chaudry, global head of digital assets, securities services and transaction services at Standard Chartered, said institutional clients "want to participate in digital asset markets without compromising on how their assets are safeguarded."

For now, the bank supports only the XRP Ledger version of the token. Ripple also issues RLUSD on Ethereum, and that version carries more supply. Standard Chartered has not said whether it will add it later.

A collateral plan that has not launched

The feature traders noticed most is a second piece, and it is not live yet. Standard Chartered and LMAX Group, an institutional trading venue, have agreed to let clients use RLUSD held at the bank as collateral for LMAX products, without moving the token to the exchange.

This works through what the firms call collateral mirroring. The bank reports the value of a client's RLUSD to LMAX, and the trader can post it against positions while the token stays in custody. The tokens stay put.

Ripple was plain about the status. "The agreed future capabilities remain subject to final documentation, successful testing, applicable laws and regulations, internal approvals and jurisdictional readiness," the company said.

Jack McDonald, Ripple's senior vice president of stablecoins, said RLUSD "was built for exactly this kind of institutional use case," and that customers "want the efficiency of a regulated stablecoin without giving up the custody standards they already trust." Luke Dorney, head of custody for digital assets at LMAX Group, called RLUSD "an increasingly important component of institutional digital asset markets."

No date was set. Neither firm said when the collateral feature would go live, or which LMAX products would take the token first.

There is already money between the two. Ripple put $150 million into LMAX in January 2026 to build RLUSD into the venue's systems, according to CoinDesk.

Their ties predate this launch. In September 2026 Standard Chartered was named LMAX Group's digital asset custodian across Luxembourg and its Dubai branch, and LMAX became the first client on the bank's Luxembourg custody platform.

Part of a wider bank push into crypto

Standard Chartered has spent 2026 adding crypto services across several markets. It fully bought the custody firm Zodia earlier in the year, won authorization under the European Union's MiCA rules in June 2026, and last week set out plans for crypto custody in Singapore. In August it became the first bank to distribute one of Hong Kong's two regulated stablecoins.

Dubai is a deliberate choice. The emirate has built a licensing system for digital assets and courted banks and exchanges. A global bank offering regulated custody there gives institutions a reason to keep the token with a familiar name.

Joseph Goh, head of Asia-Pacific at the crypto investment bank Areta, told CoinDesk that regulated custody tied to a globally systemic bank is becoming a selling point for institutions.

RLUSD sits in the middle of the stablecoin pack. It had a market value of about $2.43 billion on 12 October 2026, according to CoinGecko, well behind Tether and Circle but among the larger dollar tokens. For how the stablecoin differs from the XRP token itself, see our explainer on whether XRP is a stablecoin.

What to watch

Watch for a start date on the LMAX collateral feature, since that is the part that would let traders actually use the custody. Watch whether Standard Chartered extends the service to the Ethereum version of RLUSD. And watch Dubai. If more banks offer regulated stablecoin custody in the emirate, its pitch to host institutional crypto starts to look like a base.