Standard Chartered, a major global banking group, is deepening ties with cryptocurrency exchange OKX, becoming its institutional custodian in the European Economic Area (EEA).

Standard Chartered and OKX launched a collateral mirroring program in the EEA, allowing local institutional clients to keep their crypto directly in Standard Chartered’s custody, OKX announced on Wednesday.

The launch marks an expansion of a pilot initially launched in Dubai in April, aiming to enable institutions to keep their assets with a globally systemically important bank (G-SIB) while mirroring the balances into OKX for trading.

The program’s expansion in the EEA reinforces OKX’s commitment to Europe after the exchange secured a Maltese license under Europe’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) framework in early 2025.

How does the program work?

Before the deal with Standard Chartered, OKX’s institutional clients mostly kept their crypto on the exchange, with fiat transactions being handled through regular bank partners.

While OKX’s default custody option was its in-house solution, the exchange also allowed institutions to use third-party custodians, including Copper or Komainu, if they preferred to hold assets off-exchange.

With Standard Chartered’s integration, OKX’s institutional clients can keep their assets directly with a major regulated bank, while OKX can mirror those assets back into its trading system.

Growing trust following October’s flash crash

OKX’s collaboration with Standard Chartered is crucial for growing trust in the crypto ecosystem amid the market turmoil in October, with exchanges suffering $20 billion liquidations on Friday.

Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, has faced a massive controversy since the crash, highlighting the vulnerabilities of its price oracles and blaming the platform for investor losses worth millions of dollars.

Related: Centralized exchanges face claims of massive liquidation undercounts

“Recent events have reignited the ‘Wild West’ narrative around crypto, but partnerships like ours with Standard Chartered show how far the industry has come,” OKX Europe CEO Erald Ghoos told Cointelegraph.

“We’re proud to be working with the first and only G-SIB directly integrated with a crypto exchange, proving that regulated, secure and transparent models are the future of digital assets,” he said.