Invest2 publishersIndependently confirmed2 min readPublished
Standard Chartered Singapore's client list sets the reach of Anchorage's 24/7 dollar transfers
Anchorage Digital now gives non-US institutions USD accounts, SWIFT wires and 24/7 dollar transfers through a Standard Chartered partnership. A client that drops its separate bank keeps weekend dollar access only to firms that also bank at Standard Chartered Singapore.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- The service runs through Anchorage Digital Singapore Pte. Ltd., an entity licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
- Round-the-clock dollar settlement runs over Atlas, Anchorage Digital's own settlement network.
- Clients also get named virtual accounts with unique routing details, meant to segregate funds, attribute payment flows and simplify reconciliation.
- Anchorage says the move deepens its presence in Asia-Pacific, where banks, asset managers, family offices and corporates are building digital asset strategies.
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Why it matters
- exposure A client that consolidates puts custody, trading and its non-US dollar operations on one platform whose dollar leg depends on a single partner bank, Standard Chartered.
- precedent If the weekend network proves useful, counterparties gain a reason to open accounts at Standard Chartered Singapore, so the bank stands to win new clients from the deal alongside Anchorage.
- cost The companies did not disclose fees, so a client cannot yet price one platform against the two provider relationships it would give up.
In the US, Anchorage already offers dollar accounts through its own national bank, Anchorage Digital Bank N.A. [3]. For clients outside the US, the same product runs on Standard Chartered's banking infrastructure [7]. At home Anchorage uses its own charter. Abroad it uses a partner's bank, and its international dollar business depends on that partner's network [3][7].
The case for dropping a bank starts with how Anchorage describes the problem. According to the company, digital asset firms hold USD with one provider, digital assets with another and settle through a third [9]. Replacing three providers with one platform removes two relationships [16].
Weekend settlement has a limit. Clients of the Singapore entity can move dollars at any hour, weekends and holidays included, but only with counterparties that bank with Standard Chartered Singapore [5]. The partnership is aimed at the gap between digital asset businesses that run continuously and bank systems built on cut-off times and multi-day settlement windows [12]. "Global businesses should not have to choose between the speed of digital assets and the reliability of traditional banking rails," Anchorage CEO and co-founder Nathan McCauley said [10]. Within Standard Chartered Singapore's client base, the service as described removes that choice [5]. A dollar payment to a firm outside that base, third parties included, goes out as a SWIFT wire [6]. SWIFT is one of the traditional rails McCauley was contrasting with digital assets.
Luke Boland, Standard Chartered's global head of fintech, said the partnership combines the bank's payments and risk infrastructure with Anchorage's regulated platform [11]. He said the aim is to make it easier for institutional firms to manage fiat and digital assets across borders [11]. For the bank, the deal links its global network to a regulated digital asset platform [13].
Two outcomes look plausible. If Standard Chartered Singapore already banks most of the exchanges and trading firms a client deals with, the round-the-clock network covers most of its flows, and closing the other dollar account makes sense [5]. If few of them bank there, clients keep a second bank so they can pay everyone else at weekends. I'd expect the second outcome among the largest users: the exchanges and trading businesses with high-volume USD flows that Anchorage lists among its target clients [8]. I doubt a firm that size has every counterparty at one bank. The counter-case is a protocol or neobank whose counterparties already bank at Standard Chartered Singapore. For a firm like that, one platform does everything it needs [8]. If large exchanges close their other dollar accounts after onboarding, my view is wrong.
What to watch
- Any count of counterparties banking at Standard Chartered Singapore, or of volumes settled over Atlas, would show how much of a client's flow the weekend network actually covers.
- An extension of round-the-clock settlement to counterparties at banks other than Standard Chartered Singapore would remove the limit on the service.