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The CBUAE Payment Token Services Regulation remains the federal stablecoin/payment-token framework, now sitting alongside VARA's Virtual Asset Issuance Rulebook and the CMA's new Decision No. 4/R.M/2026 virtual-asset framework, creating an overlapping multi-regulator stablecoin/token perimeter.
Outlook
The PTSR's one-year transition period ended around June 2025 per secondary reporting, after which unlicensed payment token services became fully prohibited, and the Dirham-licence versus Foreign-registration distinction between AE Coin and USDU will need continued precise tracking to avoid conflation.
Stablecoins & Digital Money
Two distinct digital-money developments occurred in the UAE within days of one another in October 2026. Standard Chartered's DIFC branch, regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority, began live institutional custody of Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin on 12 October 2026, with a further planned collateral-mirroring link to LMAX Group reported as not yet live. Separately, the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority granted Payward FZCO, Kraken's UAE entity, Full Market Approval as a licensed virtual asset service provider, with a register entry dated 6 October 2026 and the approval itself announced 12 October 2026.
The Standard Chartered development is a bank-led entry into institutional stablecoin custody inside a DFSA-regulated structure, distinct in regulatory character from VARA's exchange-licensing track for Payward FZCO. The two events together signal that the UAE's digital-money infrastructure is expanding on both the custody side (bank-provided institutional custody of a USD-pegged stablecoin) and the trading side (a fully-approved exchange capable of AED-denominated spot and margin trading) within the same reporting window, under two different regulators operating two different licensing regimes within the same federal jurisdiction.
No CBDC development specific to the UAE was identified this cycle.
Outlook
The combination of bank-provided stablecoin custody and exchange-level Full Market Approval occurring in the same window suggests the UAE's digital-money licensing perimeter is maturing across multiple regulator tracks concurrently. Whether Standard Chartered's planned LMAX collateral-mirroring link becomes operational, and what further stablecoin products other UAE-regulated banks may introduce, are open questions for subsequent cycles.
1 earlier distinct update(s)
Stablecoins & Digital Money
The UAE's stablecoin and digital-money regulatory perimeter underwent a material structural change this cycle. The Capital Market Authority's Decision No. 4/R.M/2026 replaces the former Securities and Commodities Authority virtual-asset regime, SCA Decision No. 26/RM of 2023, with a new eight-activity federal framework and an asset 'Green List' registration gate governing which virtual assets may be traded onshore at all. This new federal regime does not operate in a vacuum: it sits alongside the existing CBUAE Payment Token Services Regulation, which governs fiat-referenced payment tokens, and VARA's Dubai-specific virtual-asset regime. The result is an overlapping, multi-regulator perimeter for stablecoin and digital-money activity in which the applicable regulator, and the applicable rulebook, depends on the precise nature of the instrument and the emirate in which the activity takes place.
Compounding this picture, CBUAE's Resolution 16 of 2026 opens an in-principle route for CBUAE licensees, meaning licensed banks and payment-service providers, to undertake virtual-asset activities that would otherwise fall under CMA regulation. This is a transitional bridging mechanism between the banking and payments sector on one hand and the CMA's virtual-asset regime on the other, but the authorisation mechanics for how a CBUAE licensee would actually be authorised to conduct CMA-regulated activity under this route remain unresolved as of this cycle's research. This is assessed at an uncertain confidence level given the thinness of primary-source detail available on the mechanics.
The combined effect of these two developments is that the UAE now has a genuinely three-way overlapping stablecoin and virtual-asset perimeter: CMA for the newly reorganised virtual-asset activities and Green List-gated tokens, VARA for Dubai-licensed virtual-asset service providers, and CBUAE for payment tokens and, potentially, for CBUAE licensees seeking to bridge into CMA-regulated territory under Resolution 16. This creates licensing complexity for market participants without, on the evidence available this cycle, constituting an access-restricting change in itself; no firm has been reported as excluded from the market as a result of this reorganisation.
Outlook
The principal open question for the UAE's stablecoin and digital-money perimeter is whether the CBUAE Resolution 16 transitional route resolves into clear, workable authorisation mechanics allowing CBUAE licensees to operate in CMA-regulated virtual-asset territory, or whether it remains a stated policy intention without practical effect. Firms currently operating under the former SCA regime face a migration process to the new CMA framework, and the degree to which CMA, VARA and CBUAE requirements are harmonised, rather than simply layered, will determine whether this cycle's reorganisation ultimately reduces or increases the compliance burden for stablecoin and payment-token issuers operating in the UAE.
Sources and findings (5)
- T1https://rulebook.centralbank.ae/en/rulebook/payment-token-services-regulationretrieved
- T3https://www.financierworldwide.com/assessing-the-uae-payment-token-services-regulationretrieved
- T3https://www.nephosgroup.com/nephos-blog/uae-stablecoin-regulation-ptsr-guide/retrieved
- T3https://www.regulationtomorrow.com/dubai-and-saudi/cbuae-payment-token-services-regulation/retrieved
- T3https://thepaypers.com/crypto-web3-and-cbdc/news/uae-central-bank-approves-first-usd-backed-stablecoin-under-ptsrretrieved