Analysis and perspective on digital banking, payments, and the regulatory landscape for financial institutions across Middle East and Africa.
SWIFT activated its blockchain-based shared ledger on 9 July 2026. Five weeks later, HSBC and Standard Chartered used it for the first live interbank tokenised deposit transaction. Read alongside the CBUAE's Payment Token Services Regulation and HSBC UAE's own tokenised deposit programme, the pattern is clear: settlement infrastructure is moving onto distributed ledger rails now, not eventually, and the banks with API-first infrastructure above core are the ones positioned to participate.
SWIFT activated its blockchain-based shared ledger on 9 July 2026. Five weeks later, HSBC and Standard Chartered used it for…
Read more →Ask any bank technology leader what “modernization” means and most will describe the same nightmare: a multi-year core replacement program,…
Read more →The UAE stablecoin market has gone from one licensed entrant to a rapidly expanding ecosystem. We map eight key stablecoins,…
Read more →The CBUAE’s Payment Token Services Regulation stopped being a “future consideration” a long time ago. The transitional period that let…
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