UK-based financial technology company Revolut has received approval from Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (Vara) to offer cryptocurrency services in the UAE.
The regulator's in-principle approval enables Revolut to offer broker-dealer, management and investment, and exchange services to clients in the country, the company said on Wednesday.
The move brings the FinTech, which has its headquarters in London, a step closer to launching its full services in the Emirates.
"This approval lays the foundation for Revolut to introduce its trusted virtual asset services within a regulated environment, supporting Vara’s goal of fostering a safe, transparent and innovation-driven virtual assets ecosystem,” Joseph Khair, head of Revolut Digital Assets in the UAE, said.
The nod from the Dubai regulator is a “major milestone in Revolut’s expansion strategy”.
The company, which serves more than 75 million clients globally, obtained stored value facilities and category-2 retail payment services licences from the Central Bank of the UAE in June.
Stored value facilities are payment systems that allow users to digitally store assets – fiat money, tokens, cryptocurrency and even rewards points – for future use. Retail payment services include merchant acquisitions and domestic and cross-border fund transfers.
Revolut is building an end-to-end financial ecosystem in the UAE and intends to launch a broader suite of virtual asset services through its retail app and standalone exchange, Revolut X.
Its services would allow “eligible customers in the UAE” to buy, sell, and hold digital assets within a regulated framework, the company said, without saying when it would launch full services in the country.
Last month, Revolut said it was working to expand its partnership base in the UAE before the launch of its full-scale operations.
The licences are "important milestones", but Revolut's focus at the moment is "building and preparing our local product offering for launch ... to ensure we have the right products, infrastructure, operational capabilities and customer experience in place", a company representative told The National at the time.
Revolut received its initial licence from UAE authorities in September last year. The company was founded in 2015 by Nikolay Storonsky and has no physical branches.
The entry of global companies such as Revolut into the UAE’s financial sector is part of efforts to integrate and adopt new technologies to boost the use of more convenient payment and banking methods.
The UAE Central Bank, supported by financial centres such as Abu Dhabi's ADGM and the Dubai International Financial Centre, has introduced regulations and programmes to encourage FinTech adoption.
Vara was set up in Dubai in March 2022 under the Dubai Virtual Asset Regulation Law, the first law in the emirate to regulate virtual assets. The body set out to establish an advanced legal framework to protect investors and provide international standards for the governance of the virtual asset industry.
The entity said last month that it had issued its 50th virtual asset service provider licence.
Vara’s licensing process assesses applicants across areas including governance, ownership, financial resilience, operational capability, technology, cyber security, risk management, compliance and anti-money laundering controls. Licensed firms remain subject to supervision and must continue to meet the conditions and requirements of their authorisation.
