Hi, good afternoon everyone.
We're very excited to have you join us at the ADX today we've got a guest, uh, based in Abu Dhabi.
He is Nick Philpott, the CEO and co-founder of Zodiac Markets.
Nick, thank you very much for joining us today.
So Zodier Markets relocated to Abu Dhabi just 2 years ago.
What was it about the region here and the sort of hub of Abu Dhabi that's attracted you?
So Zodia Markets originally established itself in the UK, London, you can tell from my accent where I'm from.
And as one of the world's largest stablecoin distributors and brokerages.
It's very, very important to us to have credible regulations and credible licenses to back us up and to give us, you know, that authenticity that uh a lot of institutions are looking for.
And, uh, Abu Dhabi for us really gave us, um, almost it's like a Goldilocks market.
Not only does it have a very credible regulator, um, with a good set of principles led or principle-based regulations, but also it's a good uh jurisdiction to run a small business, to run a fintech.
Um, everything's very easy to set up and things like that.
It's a very good talent pool as well, very diverse one, very cosmopolitan, uh, population, lots of nationalities, lots of experience and things like that.
And then last but not least, and critically.
You're able to get access to banking here, which is still something that many jurisdictions struggle with when it comes to digital assets, and that's really holding back a lot of their markets.
Fascinating.
So Zodiia Markets, it is now regulated in as a virtual asset brokerage.
So from a market.
Structure perspective, what does in your opinion, get right from a licensing and supervision standpoint?
What is it about that gives institutional clients comfort with locating here?
I think if you look at some of the other jurisdictions that license crypto, they tend to be quite offshore places, often small islands, that sort of milieu.
Um, ADGM offers a, a major financial center.
Maybe not, you know, it's not necessarily as big as a New York or a London perhaps, but it has that sort of perfect scale.
So, you know, big enough so that you get recognized and you get the attention from a regulator that you're looking for.
You don't just get stuck in a queue and have to wait for ages to get something processed so you can move quickly.
Um, but then also it's a regulator that.
It itself has managed to bring a lot of experience from other jurisdictions around the world, operates under English law, which is very easy for a firm such as ours to cope with as well.
Um, and it's not a pushover, you know, which is, which is also important.
You want someone who's going to be able to challenge you but have a degree of flexibility.
Yeah, our business model is not one that I think many regulators have contemplated, a crypto uh brokerage that's majority owned by a major international bank.
So a little bit of square peg round hole perhaps, but we found the FSA here in absolutely fantastic in terms of, OK, that's a little unusual.
Let us take that away.
They came back with ideas, worked for everyone, and we were able to move quickly and with purpose to get our license here.
Amazing.
So now talking a little bit about where we're based, so Abu Dhabi really serving obviouslyCC and the Middle East, but also Africa.
So it's a gate.
For institutional investors, what is it about this area in terms of adoption and the actual specific use cases that you can actually find problems that need to be solved?
Zodia Markets is one of the most active brokers of stablecoins in the world.
Stablecoins are a form of tokenized cash, so just think of it as cash that acts or behaves much more like email or instant messaging.
It's available 24/7, and the settlement speeds as in.
The speed at which it moves from A to B, uh, across borders or within borders, can be measured in seconds or minutes, which compares very favorably with, uh, bank transfers.
Now over the course of the last 10 to 20 years, correspondent banking, which is sort of that network of banks that allows you to move funds cross border, has actually been retreating.
To the extent that in some jurisdictions, access to dollar rails or to dollar settlement, dollar banking has become harder and harder and harder.
And so we've seen stablecoins and digital assets expand into that vacuum.
And the most affected by this withdrawal of correspondent banking, the jurisdictions, particularly in the Middle East, Africa, it tends to be the global South and emerging markets.
And so with ADGM and Abu Dhabi's position almost at that nexus, that crossroads if you like, between Africa, the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia, it's an absolutely fantastic hub in terms of time zone.
And talent as well, so you can hire a lot of people who come from a lot of these regions.
So as a way of establishing a base and projecting yourself out into those markets, it's, it's hard to beat.
And you know Zodia Markets is one of the first bank-backed crypto brokerages, which really is kind of incredible.
So it's got very strong roots.
Obviously Standard Chartered is backing Zodia Markets, very strong traditional finance in your company.
How does that create advantages for you and specifically with Abu Dhabi as your hub?
I think with a lot of people digital assets has become.
It's become wrapped up with the sort of cult of personalities, Ci, Sam Bang Sandbank and Fried, things like that, plus also lots of the scandals that, you know, often, you know, uh, land on the front page of the Financial Times or, you know, other news sources.
And so a lot of people don't really know, right, how do I separate the wood from the trees.
I suspect there's some utility here, but how do I, you know, avoid the landmines, the pitfalls, the bear traps, you know, whatever you wanna call it.
So having that, you know, bank backing.
You know, the credibility of a bank that here in the United Arab Emirates has been here since 1958, so pre-independence.
It really is able to very, very quickly and easily give customers, particularly institutional customers, that heuristic.
They can just go, OK, I can see the Standard Chartered logo.
I understand the pedigree.
This gives me that comfort to take that first step with a technology that I'm not particularly familiar with, and that's frankly, a lot of what we're trying to do, which is just make the unfamiliar familiar.
Fascinating.
So Nick, we're looking forward 1218 months.
What is on the roadmap for Zodier Markets from products, from cross listings, from asset coverage?
What are you really going to be focused on, and specifically what's the role that Zodia Markets is going to play across this region?
I mean, first of all, as clients, we put clients first in every every consideration that we have internally.
Most of our clients at the moment tend to be from the more crypto end of the spectrum, so they are exchanges and their brokerages.
And they're looking for funds, cash particularly, to be able to move as quickly and as seamlessly with the same availability as the tokens, you know, the, the crypto assets, Bitcoin, Ethereum and things like that, that they're trading or enabling their clients to trade in their platform.
What works for those customers are the same tools and have the same appeal they would to maybe a large multinational corporate.
So that's focusing particularly on, you know, funds in motion.
So our focus over the course of the next year or so is going to be on funds at rest.
So uh we're looking to try to get a security token license here in ADGM to focus on providing, you know, yield-based solutions, where where people can sweat their assets and put their cash to work.
Number one.
And then number 2 is also focusing very heavily on corporates, cos that's where we think there's going to be a lot more adoption in stablecoins and digital assets, stablecoins particularly, um, compared with perhaps, uh, financial services.
Your, your average commodity broker is dealing with cross-border trade and, you know, payment corridors that are very, very challenging.
They're in emerging markets.
And almost what better market than Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, which sits at the nexus of so much trade with major ports here, for example, huge oil and gas hubs, um, etc. etc.
So we think that we're gonna see quite significant adoption there, and that's gonna take us into, you know, hopefully, uh, a very large number of markets and um.
You know, um, you know, to see our, our fortunes prosper.
Amazing, well, that is a super exciting, uh, outlook.
Thank you so much, Nick, for joining us today at FinTech TV.
Over to you guys.
