Traditional financial giants are stepping into the stablecoin infrastructure space, and the value of a G-SIB license is indeed different—the entry channel for institutions has widened further.

Wu said that Standard Chartered Bank (Standard Chartered) has announced a partnership with Circle to launch USDC minting and redemption services for institutional clients. Standard Chartered has therefore become the first globally systemically important bank (G-SIB) licensed to provide such services. Institutional clients do not need to open an account directly with Circle and can instead operate through Standard Chartered’s unified access and service experience. The feature is now available to eligible clients in Standard Chartered’s Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) business. It aims to support institutional-grade use cases such as on-chain settlement, funds and liquidity management by connecting fiat banking services, digital asset infrastructure, and public blockchain networks.