Today I am joined by Gabrielle Inzirillo, Senior Manager of Fintech Supervision at the ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority. Gabrielle, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much, Rachel. I am absolutely thrilled to be here.
You have seen ADGM's fintech ecosystem develop from two sides — helping firms enter the market and now overseeing some of the most complex digital asset businesses. Can you walk us through that journey?
A few years back, I had the immense privilege of guiding a number of firms looking to enter the centre — acting as that liaison between the FSRA and the frameworks we were developing to ensure firms would come in and have good market entry. However, in the last few years we have come to a new pivotal point in our growth. Early on, it was very much a question of what kind of firms can we attract and how many. Now, it is not so much about number of firms — it is about the nature of the firms specifically. The question now is can global complex business models actually set up here and provide complex services to a global audience from ADGM? And honestly, the answer is yes.
How have the firms, products, and business models evolved over time?
In the early years, there was a handful of pioneers — brokers, exchanges, custodians setting up and looking to get a slice of the pie and compete within the regional and local market. Those pioneers were absolutely integral to us developing our frameworks and essentially validating them. But things have changed, because what we are seeing now is not only the establishment of global firms — and when I say global, I mean they are setting up in Abu Dhabi not to service Abu Dhabi or the GCC. They are setting up in Abu Dhabi to service the world. They want to be everything-finance players — looking at how to get traditional finance on chain. We have stablecoin issuers and distributors setting up here because stablecoins and what we call fiat reference tokens are now part and parcel of global payments routes and treasury functions. And over the summer, ADGM has become the home — if not the hub — of tokenised securities. Firms are setting up and pushing out tokenised securities backed by very traditional depository and securities infrastructure. That means 24-hour access to global markets, all supervised by ADGM.
Tokenisation is a word that gets thrown around a lot. In plain terms, why should an investor actually care?
Hopefully the end goal is no changes — that is what we are aiming for. If we strip out the jargon, it is fundamentally just a different wrapper for something clients already know. It could be a stock, a bond, or a unit of a fund. The asset itself does not change. What changes is how it is issued, how quickly it settles, and on which rails. People care because it broadens access to the market. It can be fractionalised, cut into smaller pieces, transferred much more easily — which means firms and users can get these assets out to people more quickly. It settles faster. And I think we have not yet explored the full potential of how these tokenised assets can be used. One very important point as a regulator: the protections do not change. If it is a security, it is a security. The client deserves all the regulatory protections they would expect — a claim on the asset, a custodian they can trust. The rails change. The regulatory guardrails do not.
What happens when the technology underneath the financial product becomes invisible to the user — and what does that mean for the next generation of firms?
One of the signs of a maturing ecosystem is that firms are now going to be competing on outcome alone — not novelty. The question is no longer we are new and smart and small and this is a brand new product. It is going to be very much based on what is easiest for the user, what is safest, what fits within the client's existing financial life. And as a regulator, we are also now regulating on outcome. Five years ago, we had ten to fifteen startups benefiting from our regulatory sandbox — a less onerous regime designed to test new ideas. Nowadays, maximum one or two. Being brand new no longer flies. If you are fundamentally putting out a regulated product, we will regulate you on outcome as well.
So newer firms need to think about the end game from day one?
Absolutely. We all do. It is very much about getting good products. And fundamentally, regulation is a means of proving to your clients that these are good, viable products that can be trusted.
Thank you so much for coming on, Gabrielle.
Thank you for having me.
