First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) plans to launch a Dirham stablecoin in partnership with investment firm IHC and sovereign investor ADQ. The stablecoin will be issued on the ADI blockchain, subject to regulatory approval by the Central Bank of the UAE.
The partners said the intention is for the stablecoin to be used by consumers, corporates and institutions, both domestically and for cross border payments, as well as for AI machine-to-machine payments.
The stablecoin will be launched on the ADI blockchain. The non profit ADI Foundation was launched three months ago, and was founded by IHC and one of its subsidiaries. It unveiled a $120 million fund to finance social impact business using blockchain technology. Earlier this month Guillaume de La Tour joined the ADI Foundation as its CEO. He previously led Digital Assets at Crédit Agricole as well as digital innovation.
In a Linkedin post Mr de La Tour said that ADI aims to “empower governments and institutions in emerging markets with blockchain infrastructure to deliver compliant and inclusive financial services that leave no one behind. We have an ambitious goal –to bring digital infrastructure to 1 billion people by 2030.”
Digital currency experience
Mr de la Tour and FAB have a useful combination of experience in digital currencies. Crédit Agricole developed so|cash, an open source blockchain solution for correspondent banking. And Mr de la Tour has explored the digital euro on behalf of the bank.
FAB has been an early user of JP Morgan’s blockchain based bank account, JPM Coin, now rebranded to Kinexys Digital Payments. The UAE bank was also one of the first foreign partners for China’s central bank digital currency, the digital RMB. Alongside China, the UAE is one of the founding partners of mBridge for cross border payments using CBDC, with FAB as one of the participating banks.
Later this year the UAE will launch its own retail and wholesale CBDC, the digital dirham. So there’s a novel situation where the country’s CBDC will compete with a stablecoin issued by entities closely associated with its rulers.
IHC is one of the largest holding companies in the UAE and ADQ is a massive sovereign investor. All three companies are chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who is the brother of the President of the UAE, and its National Security Advisor, as well as deputy ruler of the Abu Dhabi emirate. He also chairs G42 a major AI investor, that recently backed Inveniam, which bridges the blockchain and AI fields.
The combined expertise of FAB’s international payment infrastructure experience and the strategic backing of powerful state-affiliated investors positions this project as a potentially influential player in both domestic and cross-border digital payments.