The Bank of New York Mellon (BNY), one of the world’s largest custodian banks, will participate in the development of institutional digital asset infrastructure in Abu Dhabi’s free economic zone.
BNY announced a strategic partnership with Finstreet Limited and ADI Foundation to launch a regulated digital asset infrastructure project. The initiative will be developed within the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) international financial center.
The parties aim to provide crypto-asset custody services compliant with regulatory requirements. At the initial stage, the infrastructure will support custody for Bitcoin and Ethereum for clients within the Finstreet ecosystem. In the future, the companies plan to expand the range of services by adding support for stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, and other regulated digital instruments.
As part of the project:
- BNY will provide custody services, as well as technological and financial expertise;
- Finstreet will provide digital markets infrastructure;
- ADI Foundation will enable the use of sovereign-grade blockchain solutions.
The project is intended to strengthen Abu Dhabi’s position as one of the world’s leading digital finance hubs. The infrastructure will be localized in the UAE and focused on institutional clients.
Ajay Bhatia, Principal Council Member at ADI Foundation, stated that the partnership will unlock new opportunities for asset custody, trade finance, and lending services.
Finstreet Co-Founder Akshay Mahajan noted that the company views blockchain technology as the foundation of future global market infrastructure and plans to expand access to digital assets through Abu Dhabi’s financial ecosystem.
BNY Executive Vice Chair Hani Kablawi emphasized that the UAE is entering a new phase of financial market development driven by digitalization and integration with the global financial system.
The launch of the initiative will depend on the completion of final agreements and the receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals. The companies also noted that IHC, a holding company affiliated with Finstreet, launched the DDSC stablecoin earlier this February, backed by the UAE dirham and regulated by the country’s central bank (CBUAE).
Just days ago, the UAE announced the launch of a regulated infrastructure for exchanging the AE Coin and USD Universal (USDU) stablecoins, pegged to the dirham and the U.S. dollar, respectively.
