Singapore, October 5, 2023 – The Digital Banker, a financial news publication, named Alex Manson Digital Assets Leader of the Year during the Digital Assets Awards 2023. Manson, who leads Standard Chartered’s innovation, fintech investment and ventures arm, was selected for his leadership in expanding the digital assets ecosystem.
“Under Alex’s leadership, SC Ventures has significantly grown its footprint in the digital asset ecosystem, empowering several of its ventures to achieve landmark milestones,” said Nirav Patel, Managing Director & Editor, The Digital Banker. “This can be observed in the incubation and eventual launch of Zodia Markets, Zodia Custody and investment in Metaco. Alex has been instrumental in identifying and overcoming existing limitations of the digital assets landscape, providing institutions with alternatives on how best to invest and engage with the industry.”
During Manson’s time as Global Head of Transaction Banking, he oversaw the Bank’s landmark investment in Ripple in 2016 — a partnership and investment which continues today under SC Ventures. This effectively made the bank among one of the earliest to invest in the industry — notwithstanding the regulatory uncertainty surrounding digital assets at the time, globally — attesting to Manson’s forward-oriented approach to assessing the value of new technologies and the potential they can bring to financial services.
In May 2023, SC Ventures exited its stake in Metaco, an enterprise technology platform that enables financial and non-financial institutions to securely build, strengthen, and manage their digital asset operations, which was then acquired by Ripple for US$250 million.
SC Ventures has launched two digital-assets ventures: Zodia Markets and Zodia Custody. Manson supported Zodia Markets to receive its crypto asset registration from the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in July 2022, enabling it to officially launch its institutional crypto exchange and brokerage business in the country. This marked the first time a crypto trading business backed by a leading international bank was listed by the FCA on the UK’s Financial Services Register. During the Digital Assets Awards 2023, The Digital Banker awarded Zodia Markets Excellence in Digital Asset Innovation for creating an institutional-level crypto trading platform that enables institutional clients to seamlessly participate in digital asset markets.
He also worked with Zodia Custody on its journey to become the first dedicated crypto asset custodian to be registered to provide commercial services to clients in Ireland in August 2022. Through this, Zodia Custody was added to the Central Bank of Ireland’s Virtual Asset Service Provider Register, in preparation for the implementation phases of the European Union’s Markets in Crypto Assets Framework (MiCA), which entered into force in June 2023.
“Digital assets is one of our high-conviction themes and we believe it’s here to stay. I’m honoured to be recognized for SC Ventures’ efforts to build an ecosystem of digital asset players backed by institutional-grade infrastructure, which we hope will enable more institutional adoption of this new asset class,” Manson said.
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