Coinbase, Standard Chartered Add Six Fiat Rails for Institutions

Coinbase and Standard Chartered announced on May 26 that they have added fiat rails in Australian dollars, Singapore dollars, Canadian dollars, Swiss francs, euros and British pounds for institutional clients using Coinbase Prime and Coinbase Exchange.

The arrangement provides multi-currency funding access to support deposits, withdrawals and settlement, with the aim of reducing foreign-exchange frictions and shortening settlement times for global trading strategies. The setup is intended to let institutional desks fund spot, derivatives and financing activity from a single platform.

Rails for AUD, SGD, CAD and CHF are being added directly. EUR and GBP settlement will use bank-backed infrastructure provided by global systemically important banks. Prime Trading clients in the European Union are excluded from the feature.

The firms said the partnership builds on work since late last year that covered trading, prime services, custody, staking and lending for institutional clients. Earlier collaboration expanded Singapore banking connectivity so Coinbase customers can use real-time Singapore dollar transfers.

Coinbase linked the rollout to growth in local stablecoins and to simpler fiat-to-stablecoin flows that can speed settlement and cross-border payments as on-chain markets expand. In a statement, Coinbase wrote: “The direction is clear. A system where capital is not constrained by geography, banking hours, or legacy infrastructure.”

A survey of 351 global institutional investors conducted this year found 73% expected to increase crypto allocations, and respondents identified custody security, compliance and multi-custodian risk management as areas of focus.

Standard Chartered and Coinbase did not disclose pricing for the new rails or a timetable for rolling the functionality out across all jurisdictions.