Tokenising a real world asset is one thing. Making it investable for institutions is another. droppRWA and Token just announced a partnership to build the full pipeline from verified asset to regulated investment products, with Saudi Arabia as the first market. Joining me is Faisal Al-Monai, Co-Founder and CEO of droppRWA. Faisal, welcome back to Capital Markets Wall Street to Mena. You just announced the Unified Trust Stack — walk us through what that actually is.
Thank you for hosting me. Basically what it simply means is having three things the client needs in one place: a good verified asset, a way to buy that asset, and a regulated structure that the asset exists in. These three things are being made available for the client through this collaboration.
You said that trust starts with the asset itself. What has been missing from tokenisation so far?
The token is just as good as the asset itself. You cannot make an asset look any better just by tokenising it. In countries that have taken initiatives to digitise their registration systems — so if we are talking about real estate, the land registry system — in countries that have digitised registry systems, it is easy to create a direct line of sight from the token to the asset so that the token can truly represent the asset. Not just a wrapper or a far representation.
Why is Saudi Arabia the first market for this partnership?
Saudi Arabia is a market with true ambition with Vision 2030. All of the entities we are trying to target — especially government entities — have a digitised infrastructure already, so they are ready for that level of engagement. Saudi has also opened its real estate market to the rest of the world earlier this year. That gives us an opportunity to build in a market that needs it and present the assets on a very wide distribution, which Apex and Token have.
Apex Group services over $3.5 trillion in assets. What does having a partner that size actually change?
First of all, it changes who is in the room. They have an incredible reputation in asset administration, doing it in over 50 countries. This allows us to tokenise anything at any size and anywhere. Saudi is just the start — we are planning to replicate this elsewhere in the world.
What is the next market after Saudi?
As we announced earlier, we are currently looking into tokenising insurance-linked securities in Bermuda. That is going to be our next phase — especially since both droppRWA and Apex are based in Bermuda.
Walk us through what each step of the pipeline looks like in practice.
First, verifying the asset — making sure it is real and exists, providing a digital way for anyone who wants to buy the asset to clearly see that from the regulator. The second step is creating the structure — whether that needs to be a fund and then tokenising the fund, or tokenising the asset natively. The third step is issuance — Token issues a digital security for that asset. Then distribution through Token’s wide network. Finally, service — making sure the yield on the asset is collected and deposited in the customer’s bank account, and the asset is looked after. Every step leaves a record that the regulator can verify and the auditor can check.
Why does connecting the asset and security side with cash settlement matter?
In some assets — such as agriculture or minerals like coffee — cash is currently how the world works. If we are talking about coffee, we are dealing with a community that prefers cash. I need to verify the asset, register the settlement at the time and place where it is happening. That is why we want to provide cash settlement.
Thank you for the insight into this partnership today. Faisal, thank you for being here.
Thanks for having me on the show. Greetings to you and your audience
