Digital assets are starting to deliver speed, control and certainty for corporates the world over. Take trapped cash for example, a common corporate pain point, according to Standard Chartered’s Jennifer Lassiter, Head of Digital Assets, Europe & Americas. For a company based in countries like Nigeria, Egypt or Pakistan, strict FX controls get in the way of repatriating US dollar earnings from sales, and slow settlement, making it hard to move liquidity. But with a US dollar stablecoin, corporates can now move that money in minutes rather than wait for legacy clearing windows.
Similarly, treasurers can use on-chain FX. Instead of sending fiat currency through multiple correspondent banks, they can now use a regulated stablecoin to move and settle value globally, converting back into a currency of their choice. This process ensures more transparent tracking and lower costs.
Tokenised money market funds (MMFs) are another success story of digital assets in action. In this case, it allows corporate treasurers to invest in MMFs, represented digitally on blockchain to tap into instant rather than next-day, settlement – transforming intraday liquidity and traditional cash investing.
“A stablecoin transfer lets you settle immediately, and once a company has experienced that, it’s hard to go back,” she says. “The message is simple: treasury is modernising, moving money faster and reducing operational friction.”
Digital assets are not just used for crypto trading, an activity associated with price volatility and speculation, explains Lassiter. For corporate treasurers, they are best viewed as traditional financial instruments but on modern, programmable, digital rails, rather than antiquated settlement structures. Put simply, a stablecoin is a US dollar that can be moved 24/7 anywhere in the world and a tokenised real-world asset. It’s just an investment like an MMF, but one that can settle instantly, added Lassiter.
“It really is just a case of modernising the plumbing,” she says.
Lassiter believes that Standard Chartered’s deep roots in emerging markets, and the bank’s long-held mission to connect emerging markets to the global economy and vice versa has helped drive its approach to digital assets: companies operating in developing economies are particularly challenged by access to capital and liquidity or complex FX rules, to which digital assets really do offer a solution.
The bank began exploring their potential years ago through its venture arm SC Ventures, where it first tested digital assets commercial viability, got comfortable using the products and learnt the ropes around governance, KYC and cyber security. Today Zodia Custody, its institutional grade crypto asset custody solution, and Zodia Markets, its UK-based crypto asset exchange and brokerage for institutional clients, are both fully regulated entities built for asset managers, insurers and corporates.
“We learnt from early investments and then brought that capability into the bank and rolled out services to our clients,” explains Lassiter. “We also modernised our own internal infrastructure and were an early investor in blockchain to facilitate tokenised deposit transfer.”
It also meant Standard Chartered was primed and ready to capitalise on the sudden acceleration in the pace of change in the US triggered by the US GENIUS (Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins) Act. For years, the absence of regulation had blocked the evolution of digital assets, but since July 2025 regulation has become an enabler, clarifying the criteria governing US stablecoin issuers.
Regulation has given corporates confidence that a dollar on the blockchain truly equates to a dollar and is not an IOU, she says, pointing to the GENIUS rules that stablecoin issuers must hold safe, high-quality reserves, publish disclosures, submit to supervision and are prohibited from lending out their reserves.
“For the first time in the US, we now have a federal framework defining what a compliant, fully reserved US stablecoin issuer looks like. The GENIUS Act also signifies that digital assets are part of the financial system as opposed to a disruptive outsider.”
The regulation is also an example of iterative policy-making that is likely to catalyse regulatory clarity and change in other regions like Asia and the Middle East. The US government built on the experience of policy makers in Europe who had already developed the MiCA framework (Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation), a comprehensive rulebook for digital asset markets.
Now banks are waiting for the final supervisory guidance and legislative controls that will allow them to transact with stablecoins on their balance sheet, says Lassiter who believes the arrival of long-awaited regulatory supervision means adoption by banks and the wider ecosystem will quickly scale.
What about the risks?
Moving money on the blockchain is more transparent than over traditional channels because every transaction is permanently recorded, requires dual authorisation and clear accounting. But Lassiter warns that digital assets don’t eliminate risk for corporate treasurers – it just moves risk to a different place.
In a traditional world, corporates and banks have controls and kills switches, and, in the digital world, clients need regulated, insured institutional custodians. Digital assets only become safe when they are backed by policies and institutions, and banks are playing a critical role around compliance and risk. She also urges corporates to write their own digital asset treasury policies.
“Treasury needs to decide which assets the company is allowed to hold, who authorises the transfers, how assets are put in custody, and reporting and auditing processes. Once these guidelines are in place, digital assets just feel like a new payment rail, not a whole new asset class.”
Next year, she expects more progress and interaction between the three key themes: institutional grade custody, 24/7 settlement and tokenised finance. More banks will safeguard digital dollars and tokenised assets in the same way they safeguard regular securities; payments, liquidity and working capital will be transformed by instant settlement; and MMFs, loans and security settlement will be on-chain. Case in point: Standard Chartered’s summer launch of a fully integrated digital assets trading service for institutional clients comprising spot trading for Bitcoin and Ether through its UK branch.
“In a space that has been dominated by fintechs and early adopters, digital assets will continue to scale driven by regulated financial institutions. Change is now happening inside the banking system,” she concludes.
