Coinbase has secured regulatory approval to establish an international tokenisation hub in Abu Dhabi.

The company received a Financial Services Permission from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) of Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM).

The approval allows it to arrange investment deals and provide custody services for tokenised securities.

Coinbase said securities issued and registered in ADGM will be fully backed by underlying shares and overseen by the FSRA.

Vested holders may exercise shareholder rights including voting, while dividends will be automatically reinvested for holders.

Redemption rights remain subject to conditions in the relevant prospectus and may require a brokerage or bank account to receive proceeds.

Transactions involving only the digital securities do not require a brokerage or bank account.

Transfers will be subject to ongoing sanctions screening, while assets can be frozen or seized at the wallet level where required for compliance.

The Abu Dhabi hub forms part of Coinbase’s wider UAE expansion, which also includes a derivatives operation in Dubai.

“ADGM issued one of the world’s first regulatory frameworks for virtual assets in 2018. That reflected a genuine institutional commitment to innovation-forward regulation, executed with the rigor that global financial markets require.

No major financial center has yet built a framework that treats tokenized equities simultaneously as securities, blockchain-native tokens, and DeFi-composable assets,”

said Brett Tejpaul, Co-CEO of Coinbase Institutional.

This article first appeared on Fintech News Singapore.

Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Middle East, based on image by Who is Danny via Magnific