Mbank Eyes Switzerland
Although the digital bank currently concentrates on its home market, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), CEO Mohammed Wassim Khayata, emphasised in an exclusive interview with Finews that Al Maryah Community Bank — known as Mbank — has already licensed the country’s first stablecoin and pursues a comprehensive strategy in the crypto asset space.
The best of both worlds
“Switzerland is known as one of the world’s leading financial centres,” said Khayata. He stressed that Mbank, founded in 2021, would like to cooperate with Swiss banks — especially digital institutions — in order to better serve the growing customer base in the UAE. Such potential partnerships would allow the bank to combine its regional expertise with the innovation power and infrastructure of the Swiss financial center.
Numerous well-known blockchain companies are based in the Crypto Valley in Zug, including Tangem with its smartcard-based crypto wallets and the Tezos Foundation, which supports the Tezos blockchain. Cosmos, which specialises in interoperable blockchains, as well as the DeFi protocol Bancor, is also closely linked to the location. Zug has become a global hub because the canton offers stable conditions, attractive taxes, innovation-friendly regulation, and high legal certainty. As early as 2016, the city accepted Bitcoin payments for certain official services.
Pioneer of the Stablecoin
Expansion beyond the UAE is closely linked to Mbank’s stablecoin strategy. “Since we have our stablecoin, we want to integrate it into the banking system,”Khayata explained. One possible way is access to the Swiss market via a platform model.
Mbank was the first institution in the UAE to introduce a regulated stablecoin: AE Coin — available in cooperation with Mbank through the “AEC Wallet”. This enables Mbank’s customers to carry out stable, fiat-backed, and regulated digital transactions — for example, payments, transfers, or crypto-fiat conversions, such as when a customer sells Bitcoin and wants to receive Emirati Dirham in return. According to its website, the virtual institute targets individuals and companies in the UAE who prefer modern, digital banking – without branches, with app-based banking, easy account openings, and flexible services.
Advantage Swissness
Asked about the preferred regulation, Khayata referred to the various frameworks in the UAE — including VARA, ADGM, and ESCA — and at the same time acknowledged the depth of the Swiss market. “We are an open market, but Switzerland has better market depth.” The Alpine republic is the financial heart of Europe, while the UAE is the financial heart of the Middle East, he said.
VARA is an acronym for Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority and is the regulatory authority of the UAE that deals specifically with virtual assets such as cryptocurrencies and NFTs. The Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) is the banking free trade zone on the Al Maryah and Al Reem islands in the UAE capital. ESCA stands for Emirates Securities and Commodities Authority, the government supervisory authority responsible for regulating the UAE financial markets.
