Custody, OTC, and fiat: the scorecard

The empty scorecard for where assets rest, how a large order is priced, and how fiat enters and leaves. Rows are set. No vendor is scored.

Plan band. This page is the outline. Scores, densities, and vendor evidence are not filled. An empty cell is intentional.

This page is a plan-band outline. The scorecard is the product. The score column is empty on purpose. A filled mark without a public document behind it would be a claim this desk will not make.

Why these three sit on one page#

A desk that "adds crypto" is making one decision in three costumes: where the asset rests, how a large order gets a price, and how fiat enters and leaves. Vendors sell them as separate products. The failure modes share a balance sheet.

A custody agreement that cannot instruct a withdrawal, an OTC ticket that settles onto a house account, and a fiat rail that cannot name its correspondent are the same operational fact. The desk does not control the exit.

This primer will score the path. It will not score the logo.

What a score will mean#

A pass is a control you can point at in a document a counterparty will sign, or in a public terms page you can archive. A fail is a control that exists only in a sales sentence.

Weight is how hard the fail is to live with, not how often a vendor mentions the topic. There will be no composite star rating. A single fail on withdrawal authority, or on asset segregation, outweighs a clean row on reporting cosmetics.

This pass does not score any vendor. The grid below is the frame the finished primer will fill, one row at a time, from primary documents.

The rows that will be scored#

Contracting entity and governing law. Who the desk can actually pursue, and in which seat.
Asset segregation. Omnibus, individually segregated, or bankruptcy-remote — and which of those words is in the contract rather than the brochure.
Withdrawal authority. Who can instruct, how many approvals are required, and whether a client account can leave the venue at all.
Statements and breaks. What arrives, how often, and who owns an unmatched item overnight.
Insurance. Named perils and named limits, set against a sentence that says the assets are insured and then stops.
OTC role. Principal or agent, and whose balance sheet holds the market risk between quote and settlement.
OTC settlement. The window, the fail process, and whether client assets move to a house account in order to settle.
Fiat corridors. Named currencies, named correspondents, cutoffs, and what happens on a bank holiday in the corridor that matters.
On-ramp module versus the desk's own banking. Whether fiat is the firm's bank rail, or a vendor module with its own KYC and its own outage.
Travel rule. Who collects originator and beneficiary data, and which entity tag drives the rule.
Client asset versus house asset. Whether end-user balances are separate accounts or a pooled house balance with an internal ledger on top.
Exit. How assets leave if the vendor, the custodian, or the bank rail stops. Timeline, residual claim, and what is operationally blocked on day one.

Placeholder scorecard#

Weights are declared before any vendor is read, so they cannot be fitted to a result. The score and evidence columns stay blank until a primary document is attached. "Open" means not scored. It does not mean a pass.

Criterion	Pass looks like	Fail looks like	Weight	Score	Evidence
Contracting entity	Named entity, named law, named forum	"Our group" with no contracting party	High	Open	—
Segregation	Contractual segregation, with the insolvency claim stated	Brochure language only	High	Open	—
Withdrawal authority	Named instructors and a tested path off the venue	Client assets that can move only at the vendor's discretion	High	Open	—
Statements and breaks	A cadence and an owner for an overnight break	A portal with no break process	Medium	Open	—
Insurance	Perils, limits, and exclusions you can archive	The word "insured" alone	Medium	Open	—
OTC role	Principal or agent stated, balance sheet identified	A ticket with no stated capacity	High	Open	—
OTC settlement	Window and fail process, client asset stays put or the move is explicit	Silent transfer onto a house account	High	Open	—
Fiat corridors	Currency, correspondent, cutoff	"Fiat supported"	High	Open	—
On-ramp versus own bank	One owner for the fiat outage	Two vendors, neither accountable	Medium	Open	—
Travel rule	Operational owner and the entity tag that triggers it	Assumed away because the desk is institutional	High	Open	—
Client versus house	End-user balances separable in the vendor's books	Internal ledger over a pooled balance, undescribed	High	Open	—
Exit	Day-one block list and residual claim	No written stop procedure	High	Open	—

What this primer will not do#

It will not invent assets under management, uptime, or insurance limits.
It will not rank a vendor that has not been read from a primary document.
It will not treat an API sub-account and a qualified custodian as the same control. They answer different questions. The published screen, Getting started with Binance CaaS, covers the API white-label. This scorecard is where that screen hands off to custody, OTC, and fiat. The handoff is a scope line, not a claim about any vendor relationship.
It will not recommend a rail.

How the finished page will read#

Each row gets a short standard, the pass test, the fail test, and an evidence line that cites a public document or says the point is not published. MENA and APAC family offices do not share a correspondent corridor with every bank product lead. The finished primer will keep one grid and note, on the rows where it matters, that the seat changes the pass test. Correspondent banking and the travel-rule entity are the obvious ones.

Until those cells are filled, use the grid as a meeting agenda. An unanswered row is the finding.

Sources

No third-party document is cited in this outline. The finished primer will cite primary public documents only, and it will say so when a cell has no public source.

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