There is a certain irony in watching banks enter the crypto business. Parts of the industry spent years explaining why we would no longer need them. Now, one route to broader adoption may be the banking app people already use to pay their electricity bill.
I do not find that particularly disappointing. Most people do not want to become experts in wallets, private keys and custody arrangements before buying a financial asset. They want something they can understand, use and, ideally, complain to someone about when it goes wrong.
That is why the UAE’s decision to allow eligible Central Bank licensees to participate in its federal virtual asset framework matters. It could bring these services closer to customers who have been curious about crypto but understandably reluctant to send their money somewhere unfamiliar.
It also creates a less comfortable question: when crypto appears inside your bank app, what exactly are you trusting your bank to do?
Familiarity does a lot of work
On 25 June 2026, the Capital Market Authority (CMA) issued Resolution 16, permitting Central Bank-licensed entities, other than insurance companies, to undertake activities covered by its virtual asset framework.[1] Institutions still need the applicable authorizations before providing those services.[2] An existing banking license does not give them permission to launch whatever crypto product the marketing team has in mind.
The commercial opportunity is obvious. Banks already have customer relationships, established distribution and a familiar place on people’s phones. Specialist providers have had to persuade customers to trust an entirely new institution. A bank starts with much of that work already done.
But familiarity can also encourage assumptions.
A customer buying a virtual asset through a bank app may reasonably think the bank holds it, operates the service and takes responsibility if something goes wrong. The actual arrangement could involve a specialist custodian or another licensed provider. The screen may be simple because the structure behind it is anything but.
Customers should not need to reconstruct that structure from several sets of terms and conditions. They should know who holds their assets, what the bank is responsible for and whom they can pursue if the service fails. Putting everything behind one login makes those explanations more important.
Banks still have something to learn
I think the policy direction is sensible. Keeping traditional institutions out does not make demand disappear. It leaves customers to find other routes, some better supervised than others. Giving capable institutions a regulated way to participate is a more useful response.
However, banking competence alone does not establish competence in virtual asset services. A strong balance sheet and a recognized name do not answer every question about custody, technology or operational risk.
The Central Bank retains an important role here. UAE law requires licensed financial institutions to obtain its approval before seeking another regulator’s licence for activities outside the Central Bank’s specified financial activities.[3] That provides an additional review, rather than assuming an institution is ready simply because it is already regulated.
The same discipline should apply inside the institution. Before setting a launch date, a bank needs to decide what it can responsibly operate itself and where it needs help. Announcing a new product is considerably easier than running it.
Specialists have a role beyond their logo
For specialist providers, bank entry will bring competition. It may also bring customers and partnerships.
Banks possess resources and distribution that many specialists would find difficult to replicate. Specialists may have the systems, experience, and operational capabilities a bank would otherwise have to build. There is no particular virtue in rebuilding something merely so that every part of it carries your own logo.
Emirates NBD’s December 2024 investment in Zodia Custody illustrates the potential for that alignment.[4] Established financial institutions can participate by working with specialist infrastructure, rather than treating every new service as an exercise in starting from scratch.
That is an opportunity for providers with something useful to offer. It is less comforting for anyone whose business plan depends on banks staying out of the market indefinitely.
The practical question is what a specialist can do well enough that a bank would prefer to buy, partner or invest rather than build.
The customer should not inherit the complexity
There are regulatory questions to resolve too, including how the federal CMA route interacts with VARA’s regime for operations in Dubai outside the DIFC. Institutions should not assume that permission under one framework settles every licensing question under another.[5]
I would judge this development by what follows it. Do customers receive a useful service? Are costs and risks understandable? Can they access their assets when they need to? Is there a clear answer when they ask who is responsible?
Bank participation could make virtual assets more accessible and give specialist providers a much broader market. That would be a meaningful achievement.
But customers are being asked to bring their existing trust into a new product. Banks need to earn that trust again. Their logo cannot do all the work.
References:
[1] Capital Market Authority, Resolution No. 16/Chairman of 2026 Concerning the Permission for Entities Licensed by the Central Bank to Practice Activities Licensed by the Authority, Articles 1–2, issued 25 June 2026 [Accessed 2 October 2026].
[2] Capital Market Authority, Resolution No. 16/Chairman of 2026, Articles 1–2; General Framework Module, Articles 70–74 [Accessed 2 October 2026].
[3] United Arab Emirates, Federal Decree-Law No. 6 of 2025 Regarding the Central Bank, Regulation of Financial Institutions and Activities, and Insurance Business, Article 61(3) [Accessed 2 October 2026].
[4] Emirates NBD, Emirates NBD powers digital asset custody in the UAE through investment in Zodia Custody, 12 December 2024 [Accessed 2 October 2026].
[5] United Arab Emirates, Cabinet Decision No. 112/2022 on Delegating Certain Competencies related to the Regulation of Virtual Assets, Articles 2–3 [Accessed 2 October 2026].
