Capital markets are changing fast, and Saudi Arabia is becoming one of the regions where that shift is happening in real time.
From foreign direct investment to financial inclusion and tokenized real world assets, technology is starting to change how capital moves, who can access it.
And how markets are being built.
Joining me now is Faisal Al-Monai, the co-founder and CEO of droppRWA, a company working to bring tokenization and real-world asset infrastructure into Saudi capital markets.
Let's start with the basics here.
What does tokenization of real world assets actually mean?
Greeting Ragda.
Thank you for hosting me on the show.
Um, it simply means, uh, taking something real, any type of asset, basically, and creating a digital twin for that, uh, whether it's a piece of land or a barrel of energy or a block of gold bar, um, any type of asset, basically, uh, and changing it into a format, digital format that can actually be divided, traded.
Um, um, uh, shared, uh, making it programmable as well, so you can encode the rules of trading, uh, this, uh, asset.
Yeah, so Faisal, you built also Saudi Arabia national payment system.
How you're tokenizing parts of its economy, what's the through line in that?
It's pretty much the same thing.
20 years ago, we wanted to move the money digitally rather than physically.
Now we're doing it, we're doing the same thing exactly, but with different types of assets, whether it's real estate, energy, or minerals.
So seconds, not days.
November 2025 RWA executed the world's first sovereign native tokenized property deed transfer between the National Housing Company and the Real Estate Development Fund, cutting settlements from days to seconds.
First, what actually happened that day?
Um, so we, what we did is we basically moved properties from national housing company to the real estate development fund in a transaction.
Um, so instead of the usual waiting 4 days for the payment to happen, um, the entire transaction, so we moved the deed ownership as well as the money in about 66 seconds.
Yeah, OK, when a property deed now is tokenized, what does that mean for someone who wants to invest in Saudi real estate from Dubai, from Cairo, or even from New York?
Um So basically it means that the ownership now is in the form of a token um recognized by the land registry or the authority within the country, um, so when you buy that, You're not buying a claim to ownership.
You're actually owning a fraction of the asset through that token, and the registry or the land registry or the government in the country where the asset is basically recognizes your ownership, whether you're inside Saudi or you're outside Saudi regardless whether you're an individual or an entity.
Mhm, so you own a fraction of that whether you're in Saudi or not.
You also now have over $12 billion in tokenization, uh, mandates.
Which assets are being tokenized first?
Um, obviously it's real estate because that is the, uh, largest, uh, um, asset in the world, um, uh, but we're also including energy into that, um, uh, also metals, um, meaning gold and other minerals.
Hm OK.
Speaking of energy, you now have, you also partnered with to tokenize Saudi energy assets.
So what does that actually mean now for Saudi Arabia's energy sector and also how big is this opportunity?
Um, What it means is basically uh you can um fund uh energy projects as well as uh enable this market for other individuals or financial institutions to be able to participate in this market.
This market was quite closed, especially if we're talking about, you know, oil type of energy or carbon credits.
Um, so, um, with the um.
Uh, with the existing projects of EDF at hand, basically right now what we're doing is we're looking at these different assets and projects, uh, especially the revenue yielding projects, and looking at putting that on chain and therefore making it available for people to invest on.
Yeah, so let's move over to stablecoins now and stablecoin settlement for real estate by the end of 2026.
Is that realistic?
Um, right now, basically, uh, we're, uh, uh, actually Saudi is looking into, um, regulating a stablecoin.
The idea is basically to, um, create a stablecoin that, um, the, you know, the different entities such as the central bank and SAA can actually deal with and regulate, um, um, and acknowledge.
Uh, so that it becomes, um, um, a monetary unit that allows you to, um, buy either into a real estate product or finance a real estate, uh, project, for instance, and, um, uh, right now, the regulation is, uh, basically being drafted for that.
Yes, so by 2030 you predict Saudi Arabia will have a sovereign grade tokenized financial system that G20 countries will emulate.
Is the rest of the world ready for that?
Um, it doesn't really matter whether the world is ready or not, it's going to happen, and it's not just me saying it basically.
Larry Fink said it, uh, Peter Hughes said it, uh, from Apex, um, uh, you know.
Right now, the the, if we're looking at the real estate sector in Saudi Arabia, the regulator basically has encoded the regulation into the token itself, which is a very forward thinking step which gives comfort to any investor around the world basically that there will be no dispute over the ownership in the future.
And um uh, you know, whether by 2030, whether the world is ready or not, basically there will be countries that are actually doing transactions and other countries that will be, you know, drafting frameworks and trying to regulate this.
Yeah, and we'll definitely follow the progress.
Thank you, Faisal, for being with us today.
