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Robinhood, SoFi and Public are using the scrutiny surrounding Webull to compete for its customer assets. All three launched Webull-specific transfer incentives after a bipartisan House committee labelled the brokerage’s China ties a national security risk.The platforms are offering a 3% match on eligible transfers from Webull through the Automated Customer Account Transfer Service (ACATS). The system allows investors to move eligible securities and cash between US brokerages without selling most transferable holdings. Robinhood Converts an Existing Promotion into a Webull OfferRobinhood already had a broader account-transfer campaign offering eligible customers personalised match rates of between 1% and 3%. It amended the published terms to give transfers originating from Webull a fixed 3% rate from 7 October, regardless of the customer’s personalised offer. The Webull offer runs until 16 October.The bonus has no stated maximum and is credited once the transferred assets reach the customer’s Robinhood account. However, transferred value must generally remain at Robinhood for five years to avoid a potential proportional chargeback. Robinhood’s advertising went beyond the usual language of transfer promotions. “American assets should be at America’s favorite broker,” CEO Vlad Tenev wrote on X. The company separately told Webull users to “bring your portfolio home,” explicitly connecting the incentive to Robinhood’s US identity.Robinhood is proudly American, founded here to give everyday investors more access to the financial system.If you’re still on Webull, bring your portfolio home and get 3% on your transfer today: https://t.co/QuCN3myHTj— Robinhood (@RobinhoodApp) October 7, 2026Public and SoFi Join the Transfer PushPublic created a separate programme for taxable brokerage accounts and IRAs transferred from Webull. The 3% reward applies to transfers initiated by 26 October and is paid in monthly instalments over six years. The company caps eligible transferred assets at $1 million, producing a maximum match of $30,000.SoFi is offering the same percentage on Webull transfers into eligible self-directed taxable accounts and IRAs. Its promotion runs from 8 to 15 October and replaces the standard 1% ACATS match available under a separate campaign.Robinhood is proudly American, founded here to give everyday investors more access to the financial system.If you’re still on Webull, bring your portfolio home and get 3% on your transfer today: https://t.co/QuCN3myHTj— Robinhood (@RobinhoodApp) October 7, 2026SoFi caps the reward at $150,000, equivalent to 3% of a $5 million transfer, and requires the assets to remain for five years to retain the full bonus.The offers differ in duration, payment schedule and maximum value, but all three brokers selected the same competitor immediately after the congressional report.Scrutiny Creates a Commercial OpeningThe House committee said Webull remained more closely connected to China than its public positioning suggested. It pointed to the founder’s voting control, the company’s large China-based technology workforce and the possibility that US customer data could be exposed to personnel or laws in the country. Webull’s shares fell by almost 30% intraday after the report became public.In a statement filed with the SEC, Webull said the report contained important factual errors. It maintained that US customer data and assets remain in the United States, that China-based employees cannot access sensitive customer information and that the committee identified no misuse of data.The transfer campaigns provide an early test of whether political scrutiny can move more than a broker’s share price. Because ACATS makes brokerage portfolios portable, Robinhood, SoFi and Public are giving Webull customers a direct financial incentive to turn reputational concerns into actual asset outflows.This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com. via News – Finance Magnates | Financial and business news https://ift.tt/Ly6j0hH

Trade Republic's annual profit rose almost sevenfold to €232.7 million as commission income more than doubled. The figures provide the final full-year benchmark before Germany’s payment-for-order-flow exemption expired. According to Trade Republic’s newly filed financial statements for the year ended September 2025, commission income rose because of higher trading volumes and a broader product range. Costs also rose, but much more slowly than revenue, driving a sharp improvement in profitability.Profit Reaches €232.7 Million Commission income rose 132% to €732.6 million, while interest income declined slightly as lower rates offset growth in interest-bearing cash reserves and bank balances. Operating costs also increased, but more slowly than income. Administrative expenses rose 87% to €419.8 million, including higher spending on marketing, technology and outsourced services. Consequently, the cost-to-income ratio improved to 62% from 83%.The results preceded a €1.2 billion secondary share transaction that valued Trade Republic at €12.5 billion. The transaction involved existing shares and did not provide new capital to the company, which reported more than 10 million customers and €150 billion in client assets. The Commission Engine Behind the Profit Trade Republic’s non-financial report describes the execution model operating during the period: all trades were conducted through LS Exchange, while customers generally paid a fixed €1 third-party-cost fee. Savings-plan executions were free. The financial statements show that commission income covered execution-related subsidies, customer fees, payment services and other commission items. Those subsidies included rebates received for routing securities orders to trading partners. PFOF rebates formed part of Trade Republic’s commission income during the period, but the financial statements do not disclose their value. It is therefore impossible to determine how much of the increase from €315.6 million to €732.6 million came from routing payments.Trade Republic attributed the wider increase to higher trading volumes, an expanded product range and continued international growth.The Post-PFOF Test Begins After Germany’s PFOF exemption expired on 30 June 2026, Trade Republic introduced two execution options. Under the standard Best Price model, the company selects the execution venue based on prices available across the relevant exchanges and charges €1 per order. Clients who want to choose the venue themselves can use Direct Price. This option provides access to 30 exchanges and costs €2 per order. Finance Magnates previously examined the new structure. Despite the approaching ban, management said in the report that it expected another significant absolute increase in commission income during the following financial year and had adapted its strategy accordingly. Separately, Trade Republic Business III GmbH received approval to operate a multilateral trading facility on 23 January 2026. The accounts do not explain its intended role or connect it to the new execution model. The next accounts will provide the first evidence of how the new model performs, although only the final three months of that financial year fall after the German PFOF exemption expired.This article was written by Tanya Chepkova at www.financemagnates.com. via News – Finance Magnates | Financial and business news https://ift.tt/XPnMD4o

FIS has launched anagentic AI suite for finance teams, including a module that forecasts cash flowacross multiple time horizons. The FIS Agentic Insights Suite combines internaland external data to support cash flow analysis and risk assessment.London's trading industry is coming home!Cash flow managementis also relevant to CFOs at retail CFD brokers, who oversee working capital,regulatory capital requirements and counterparty risks. Finance Magnates hasreported that BPPrime's operator identified working capital needs and counterparty credit riskamong its financial concerns. One Global Market'slatest accounts show that it generated £411Kin operating cash flow in FY25, reversing a £710K outflow a year earlier.Changes in working capital accounted for much of the improvement.AI Suite Combines Internal and ExternalDataThe importance ofworking capital management is also reflected in Deloitte's Finance Trends 2026survey. It found that 46% of global finance leaders identified working capitaloptimisation as a priority area for agentic AI, while 14% said they had fully integratedAI agents into their finance functions.The platform combinesdata from enterprise resource planning, treasury and customer relationshipmanagement systems with external credit bureau and public data. FIS said thisis designed to reduce manual data reconciliation across finance, credit and treasuryteams.FIS Adds Machine Learning to CashForecastingThe cash flowforecasting module uses machine learning and simulations to model differentscenarios, including delayed incoming payments and faster cash outflows. Thesuite also provides real-time account scoring, recommendations and dashboardsthrough Microsoft Power BI. Users can submit questions in natural language.“Most finance teamscan tell you what happened to their cash last quarter; very few can tell youwhat happens next month with confidence,” said Andrés Choussy, President ofCapital Markets at FIS.The suite connectswith FIS's receivables products, GETPAID and BillerIQ, and treasury products,Integrity and Quantum. FIS said deployment can take weeks rather than months.Planned futurereleases include payment anomaly detection and dispute forecasting. The suiteis also designed to help finance teams manage days sales outstanding, a measureof how long a business takes to collect payments.This article was written by Tareq Sikder at www.financemagnates.com. via News – Finance Magnates | Financial and business news https://ift.tt/rX8cdgW

TheMonetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has drawn a clearer regulatory linearound the use of artificial intelligence in financial services. On 7 October2026, the regulator published its Guidelines on Artificial Intelligence RiskManagement, establishing supervisory expectations for financialinstitutions using AI, from traditional machine-learning models to GenerativeAI and increasingly autonomous AI agents. The guidelines follow a publicconsultation launched in November 2025 and will begin taking effect on 7October 2027.AI isincreasingly moving beyond chatbots and productivity tools into areas that caninfluence financial decisions, customer interactions, compliance, riskmanagement and potentially execution itself. MAS specifically warns that AIagents with access to tools could autonomously perform erroneous orunauthorised actions. It also identifies financial, operational, conduct,financial crime and reputational risks arising from AI, alongside security,privacy and third-party risks associated particularly with Generative AI.AFramework Built Around Risk, Not a Ban on AITheframework is not designed to slow the adoption of AI. Its central idea isproportionality. MAS expects financial institutions to understand where AI isbeing used, determine how important and risky each application is, and thenapply controls that match that risk. A tool used to proofread an internal emailclearly does not require the same controls as an AI model influencinginvestment recommendations or customer risk assessments.London's trading industry is coming home!Thisdistinction is important when considering whether the framework is"mandatory". These are guidelines setting out MAS' supervisoryexpectations, rather than a standalone piece of legislation imposingidentical technical requirements on every company. Yet regulated firms shouldnot interpret this as optional guidance. MAS states that all financialinstitutions should adhere to its high-level expectations when deploying AI,while implementation should be proportionate to their size, activities and AIrisk exposure. The guidelines also complement existing MAS requirements andprinciples, including Fairness, Ethics, Accountability and Transparency, knownas FEAT.This givesfirms roughly one year to establish the core governance layer and another yearto complete the broader operational framework. MAS has also said that itintends to consult the industry in 2027 on whether further guidancespecifically addressing agentic AI would be useful.WhoNeeds to Follow the Guidelines?The scopeis broad. MAS says the guidelines apply to all financial institutions and allforms of AI technology. The categories listed by the regulator include banks,fund managers, financial advisers, insurers, payment institutions, exchanges,clearing houses, custodians, credit rating agencies and firms dealing incapital markets products. Exempt futures and OTC derivatives brokers are alsoexplicitly included among the categories covered.Read fullanalysis on Finance Magnates Intelligence portal:This article was written by Sylwester Majewski at www.financemagnates.com. via News – Finance Magnates | Financial and business news https://ift.tt/a0zZuoT

ZFX has been named winner of the ‘Best Trading Conditions’ award at the UF AWARDS APAC 2026, presented during iFX EXPO Asia 2026. The award confirms what ZFX has worked toward for years: transparent, secure and technology-driven trading.Part of Zeal Group, a portfolio of regulated financial institutions and fintech companies specialising in multi-asset liquidity, ZFX serves both retail and institutional investors across forex, commodities, indices, stocks and cryptocurrencies via CFDs. Founded in 2017 by a group of experienced traders, the company has grown into a multi-asset brokerage with a widening footprint across Greater China, Southeast Asia, Latin America, South Africa, India and Dubai. For a broker of that reach, trading conditions are not a single feature but the sum of pricing, execution, liquidity and the safeguards behind every position.What the award recognisesAt its core, Best Trading Conditions is a recognition of cost and execution quality. Behind this sits the company's institutional-grade liquidity. ZFX has established a highly diversified liquidity pool and prime brokerage relationships, allowing it to operate as a competitive matched principal broker and source pricing directly from the institutional marketplace. Paired with millisecond-level execution, it keeps spreads tight even when markets move fast.A market-neutral model built on transparencyZFX's competitive pricing is built on its institutional-grade liquidity. The company has established a highly diversified liquidity pool and prime brokerage relationships, allowing it to operate as a competitive matched principal broker and source pricing directly from the institutional marketplace. Paired with millisecond-level execution, it keeps spreads tight even when markets move fast.Regulation and the security of client funds"Winning this award validates our ongoing efforts to create a secure, fair, and transparent trading environment. At ZFX, our core mission has always been to build unwavering trust with our clients and to elevate their trading experience through cutting-edge technology continuously," said the CEO of ZFX.A growing presence across Asia-PacificThe award also reflects ZFX's growing influence across the Asia-Pacific trading community, supported by an active engagement programme through 2025 and 2026. In May 2026, the company hosted a premium client and partner experience day at Sha Tin Racecourse in Hong Kong, pairing a tour of its Hong Kong office with client networking. The recognition reflects the standard ZFX holds across every market it serves: regulated operations, competitive liquidity, dependable technology and client-focused trading conditions.To learn more about ZFX's award-winning trading conditions, visit the ZFX official website.About ZFXZFX is a global multi-asset FinTech brokerage under Zeal Group, delivering safe, fair and efficient investing services worldwide. Founded in 2017 by a group of veteran traders with decades of industry experience, ZFX serves retail and institutional investors across forex, commodities, indices, stocks and cryptocurrencies via CFDs. Operating through Zeal Group's regulated entities in regions and countries such as Greater China, Southeast Asia, Latin America, South Africa, India and Dubai, ZFX combines transparent pricing, secure infrastructure and a technology-driven, market-neutral model to deliver trading conditions built around the interests of its clients. Learn more at www.zfx.com.This article was written by FM Contributors at www.financemagnates.com. via News – Finance Magnates | Financial and business news https://ift.tt/C6pgWSO

Bitcoin needs to stop competing with AI for attention. If the case for owning it still depends on being the most exciting bet on the future, then years of institutionalisation have done less than crypto likes to admit.For years, that asset had a very convenient advantage. It gave investors tech, finance, rebellion and the thrill of being early, all in a single liquid investment. AI now offers much of that excitement in a form traditional investors already know how to read through earnings, capital spending and companies with businesses they can actually model.Crypto seems strangely worried by that. I am not. Bitcoin losing its monopoly on speculative excitement is only a problem if excitement was doing more of the work than the industry wants to acknowledge.Back in June, there was an almost suspiciously convenient explanation for Bitcoin’s bad year - investors had simply found something more exciting. It was trading around $63,000, down almost a third in 2026, while semiconductor stocks were among the market’s biggest winners. Major semiconductor ETFs had taken in more than $21 billion that year, while Bitcoin ETFs had recorded roughly $3.1 billion in net outflows. Reuters described it as investors cooling on Bitcoin while chasing AI and a new wave of major tech listings. It was an easy story to believe. Maybe too easy. By August, that explanation looked much less convincing. Bitcoin had climbed back above $80,000 and at one point was up 28% for the month, its strongest monthly gain since November 2024. AI enthusiasm had barely cooled. Nvidia jumped 8.7% after another strong forecast, while estimates for 2026 capital spending by Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Oracle had risen from about $485 billion in January to roughly $730 billion by July.Bitcoin was recovering while investors were still extremely enthusiastic about AI. I think crypto has been far too quick to confuse losing the spotlight with losing the investment case.Bitcoin used to combine several ideas into one tradeIf what you want is a clean play on technological acceleration, AI is hard to beat right now. The money is there, in corporate spending, in the race to build data centers and in the prices investors are willing to pay for the companies supplying the computing power.This is where I think the June interpretation lost its way. The money leaving Bitcoin ETFs for semiconductor funds was real, but the conclusion was much harder to support. The asset had supposedly lost the “future trade,” and therefore part of its reason to exist. I do not buy that. That argument only works if it still needs technological novelty to attract capital, and I think that stopped being true years ago.What AI seems to have taken from Bitcoin is not its ability to attract capital, but a role it once had almost to itself: the liquid bet that let investors feel they had spotted the future before everyone else. But its ownership base looks very different now. Regulated products have opened it to funds that once would not have touched it, while investors with no interest in crypto culture are perfectly comfortable discussing Bitcoin as a monetary asset.It can still be speculative, volatile and deeply irrational at times. But plenty of people buying it today are not trying to discover the next technology before everyone else. AI did not take those reasons away. It took over one job Bitcoin used to perform exceptionally well: making investors feel that they had spotted the future early.I think crypto gives up far too much by treating the loss of that job as a loss for Bitcoin itself. But that is only half of the argument. In the second part, I want to look at why crypto is so uncomfortable with losing that role, and whether Bitcoin actually needs it back.This article was written by Petr Sergeev at www.financemagnates.com. via News – Finance Magnates | Financial and business news https://ift.tt/ykHKUPw

MH Markets was honored with the “Best CFD Broker in Asia Pacific 2026” award during iFX EXPO Asia. This recognition reflects the company’s continued commitment to the forex and CFD industry over the years, further affirming its strategic focus on expanding across Asian markets and advancing localized operations.Asia is home to diverse trading needs and service environments. MH Markets continues to combine global resources with the market expertise of its regional teams to strengthen its service ecosystem in areas such as client communication, partner support, and trading education. This award marks an important milestone in the company’s regional development and reinforces its commitment to continuously enhancing service quality and building long-term relationships with clients and partners.On the second day of the event, Khaled El Khatib, Head of Global Market Analystsat MH Markets, moderated a panel discussion titled “From Bitcoin to Gold: Where Does the Real Revenue Come From?” Together with industry representatives from B2BPrime, IC, ACCM, Bitget Academy, and GoldZip, the panel explored revenue models, customer acquisition costs, and compliance challenges in gold and cryptocurrency businesses. The discussion also covered gold tokenization, the convergence of traditional finance and blockchain technology, and potential directions for profitable growth over the next three years.Building on this recognition, MH Markets will further refine its client service processes and cross-team collaboration to improve response times and issue resolution efficiency. In partner services, the company will continue to optimize marketing resources, educational content, and event support according to the needs of different regional markets, helping partners strengthen local market engagement and establish a more stable foundation for cooperation.Meanwhile, MH Markets will continue to enhance its promotional campaigns and client reward programs, with a focus on accessibility, transparent rules, and customer experience. The latest MH Markets Global Trading Competition will also strengthen the brand’s engagement with trading communities worldwide. Through practical trading activities, market discussions, and experience sharing, the competition aims to broaden participation in trading education and deepen traders’ understanding of strategy application and risk management.Looking ahead, MH Markets will continue to expand its global presence by combining localized services with global resources, further improving its products and service offerings, and deepening collaboration with partners across different markets to deliver an enhanced trading experience for traders worldwide.This article was written by FM Contributors at www.financemagnates.com. via News – Finance Magnates | Financial and business news https://ift.tt/yg1NWQA

The recognition comes as cTrader continues to strengthen its presence across key Asian markets, including mainland China, where the platform is specifically localised for traders in this region. Globally, more than 12 million traders already use cTrader, which supports 23 languages and serves more than 300 brokers and prop firms.AI is high on the agenda for traders and brokers alike, and cTrader is already set up for it. cTrader MCP servers for trading connect the platform to popular AI apps. Traders state what they need in plain language, and the AI analyses markets, manages accounts, handles orders and positions or adjusts the trading workspace. In the meantime, with cTrader CLI, trading, account and algo operations can be managed from the command line manually or handed over to an AI assistant. cTrader remains a best-in-class platform for traders at every stage of experience. Newer traders are drawn to the mobile-first, intuitive interface, built-in risk management tools, executable signals, price alerts and educational content. Experienced traders get the advanced order controls, a professional technical analysis workspace, native C# and Python support and free 24/7 cloud execution for cBots, with no VPS required. What brokers asked us in Hong Kong and what we showed them Three questions came up at the Expo: “How can we acquire new clients without extra spending?”, “What can we offer that competitors don’t?” and “How can we improve the cost-efficiency of our liquidity setup?”. Here’s how we answered them.Getting clients without paying for every clickThe cTrader Leads programme helps brokers reach and convert traders who are already actively exploring broker offerings or looking for new trading tools within cTrader, at no upfront cost. Those opportunities come through cTrader Store and the cross-broker cTrader app, which together attract more than 170K visits per month. After conversion, the average first deposit reaches $800, with an average of 2.3 deposits per user per month. Standing out in a crowded market In an industry this competitive, differentiation has become a business priority. Multi-platform plugins open up a new opportunity for brokers and prop firms, letting them shape their cTrader offering around client needs, business goals and brand identity. A firm can build its own tools and services into cTrader, pre-install them for its clients and, optionally, list them in cTrader Store to reach new potential clients.There is no need to wait for a core platform release. Brokers and prop firms can launch exclusive services on their own timelines, serve different trader segments and use cases and build an offering that is distinctly their own.Making liquidity more cost-effectiveLiquidity was another major topic in Hong Kong, in particular the pressure to improve pricing and execution without letting infrastructure costs rise at the same pace.cFinancial, an institutional liquidity provider for brokers and prop firms, was present at the expo and drew particularly strong interest. Ricardo Dias, Business Development Manager, even called it “the star of the Expo.” cFinancial offers executable pricing, intelligent routing and resilient infrastructure, with a flat commission of $4 per $1M on FX and metals.For brokers, however, the challenge does not end with accessing liquidity. Once it is connected, they also need an efficient way to manage aggregation, routing and exposure. This is the role of cBridge, a standalone liquidity bridge, which brings these functions into a single workflow across cTrader, MT4, MT5 and FIX API. With fixed, infrastructure-based pricing, bridge costs do not rise with trading volume, offering potential savings of up to 80% compared with volume-based models. Taken together, cFinancial and cBridge cover both sides of the equation: access to competitive liquidity and the cost-efficient infrastructure needed to manage it. Get in touch with our teamThe Expo may be over, but the challenges raised there are as relevant as ever. If you could not be in Hong…

Customer deposits at US retail forex brokers rose in July for the first time in four months, then edged lower in August. The six registered dealers owed retail clients $469.96 million at the end of August, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data.July added $9.27 million, a 2.01% increase that lifted the total to $471.58 million. That followed June's $462.31 million, which FinanceMagnates.com reported in August as the lowest since at least September 2023. August took back $1.61 million, or 0.34%.London's trading industry is coming home!The recovery has not closed the gap with last year. The August total is 7.23% below the $506.58 million held in August 2025, the widest annual shortfall since March, and still under the January level that FinanceMagnates.com described at the time as the lowest in more than two years.Gain Capital Accounts for Most of July's IncreaseGain Capital, the StoneX subsidiary behind FOREX.com, held $204.12 million in July, up 3.57% on June. Its $7.03 million gain was about three-quarters of the industry's net increase for the month.Gain Capital barely moved in August, ending at $204.16 million. It holds 43.44% of all US retail forex deposits, and together with OANDA it accounts for 71.40%.Charles Schwab Futures and Forex rose 3.53% in July to $56.00 million, recovering from a June balance that was its lowest since at least September 2023. It slipped 0.18% to $55.90 million in August and remains 8.71% below a year earlier.The same Schwab unit began offering CME single-stock futures in August, one of several US brokers to add the contracts after CME opened the market in July.tastyfx, IG Group's US forex brand, gained 4.10% in July to $49.95 million and gave back 1.73% in August, ending at $49.09 million. That is 13.31% more than in August 2025, the largest annual increase among the six dealers.Trading.com held $2.85 million in August, down 0.74% on the month but 11.53% above a year earlier.OANDA Falls for a Third Straight MonthOANDA was one of three dealers to shrink in July, losing 0.34% to $132.45 million. August cut its balance a further 0.81% to $131.38 million, the lowest monthly figure since at least September 2023.The FTMO-owned broker held $148.44 million a year earlier, so its US forex book has contracted 11.50% in twelve months.Interactive Brokers moved the other way across the two months. Its balance fell 4.16% in July to $26.19 million, then rose 1.53% to $26.59 million in August, still 20.28% below August 2025 and the steepest annual decline of the six.Its wider business kept growing. Interactive Brokers reported client equity of $962.8 billion in August, up 35% year over year, with 5.46 million client accounts.Crypto Apps' Futures Brokers Hold More Client MoneyThe futures brokers owned by Coinbase and Robinhood held $581.4 million of segregated client money in August, more than the six forex dealers combined, according to an FM Intelligence analysis of the same CFTC filings. Coinbase Financial Markets alone held $346.9 million.The regulator's October 5 notice on a retail crypto framework contemplates leveraged retail crypto purchases only through futures commission merchants or banks they sponsor.The two figures measure different things. Futures balances cover every futures client at those firms, including those who never trade crypto.The forex number is a month-end snapshot of what dealers owe retail forex clients, adjusted for realized and unrealized trading profit and loss, so a monthly move can reflect client results as well as deposits and withdrawals.This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com. via News – Finance Magnates | Financial and business news https://ift.tt/wgtEvQp

Kraken's parent Payward received Full Market Approval from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) today (Monday). Kraken plans to start serving clients in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the coming weeks, the company said.The approval is the last stage of VARA's licensing process. It follows the preliminary authorization Payward FZCO received in May for a broker-dealer, investment and management license, which allowed the unit to build its local operations but not to onboard clients.London's trading industry is coming home!The license covers retail, professional and institutional investors, so Kraken can now market its platform directly to Dubai's retail traders. VARA limits retail clients to services it expressly permits. Payward says it holds more than 100 licenses and registrations worldwide.Late to a Crowded RegisterKraken enters a market where the largest offshore exchanges arrived years earlier. Crypto.com's Dubai entity secured a VARA license for exchange and broker-dealer services in November 2023.Binance Dubai received its full license in April 2024 and began moving UAE users off its global platform that June. Bybit announced in October 2025 that it had obtained a full platform operator license from the UAE's federal Securities and Commodities Authority instead.Dubai's regime licenses each activity separately, from brokerage and custody to lending and advisory work, with capital requirements set by activity, as FinanceMagnates.com noted in a May comparison of the US, EU, Singapore and Dubai crypto frameworks.Dirham Accounts First, Derivatives LaterAt launch, UAE clients will trade spot and margin on pairs quoted in dirhams and deposit and withdraw the local currency directly, Payward said.Retail users will also get on-chain staking, transfers through the Krak app and xStocks, the tokenized equities whose backing assets passed $800 million in September.Institutional clients gain OTC spot trading and access to Kraken Prime, which Kraken opened as a self-service platform for institutions in August.Arjun Sethi, co-CEO of Payward and Kraken, said UAE clients would get "the same order book and multi-asset coverage we run in every other market."Crypto derivatives and more yield products are expected later in 2026 and into 2027, subject to regulatory approval. Under VARA's exchange rulebook, updated in March, a licensed platform needs the regulator's explicit approval before it lists futures, options or perpetual contracts.Payward also plans to offer its trading infrastructure to regional firms as an embedded service.Expansion While Volumes FallThe Gulf launch lands in a weaker year for crypto trading volumes. Payward's adjusted revenue rose 17% year over year to $508 million in the second quarter, while platform transaction volume fell 13% from the first quarter to $310 billion.Payward, which filed confidentially with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in November 2025, does not plan to list before the second quarter of 2027, CoinDesk reported in September, citing people familiar with the matter.This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com. via News – Finance Magnates | Financial and business news https://ift.tt/SkBWdOq