Ripple’s RLUSD stablecoin wins key regulatory green light in UAE

Ripple’s dollar-backed stablecoin, RLUSD, received clearance for use inside the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) after being formally recognized as an Accepted Fiat-Referenced Token, giving it a regulatory foothold in one of the world’s most tightly governed crypto hubs.

The Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) designation means firms licensed by the authority can now use RLUSD for regulated activities, Ripple said on Thursday. Approval places the stablecoin alongside a small group of tokens permitted inside the ADGM’s ring-fenced financial system.

For Ripple, it’s a material step into the Middle East, where banks and payment firms have been quicker to adopt tokenized settlement rails than their U.S. counterparts. It follows recent expansion into Bahrain and continued growth in the Gulf, where the company is pitching RLUSD as a settlement asset that can plug into payment corridors and capital-market applications without the regulatory overhang that has grounded competitors in the U.S. and Europe.

RLUSD, introduced in late 2024 under a New York DFS trust charter, has climbed past $1.2 billion in circulating supply on the back of rising institutional demand for a dollar token with defined reserve rules and redemption rights. That makes it the 10th-largest stablecoin by market cap, according to CoinGecko data.

The token has also begun appearing in collateral and settlement flows across Ripple’s enterprise clients as part of the company’s strategy to position RLUSD directly inside its cross-border payments stack.

While stablecoins tied to U.S. regulation typically dominate global volumes, ADGM’s approval gives Ripple access to a jurisdiction that has built a reputation for strict token classifications and bank-friendly digital-asset frameworks.

Those safeguards are a key reason why several financial institutions in the Middle East and Africa — from Zand Bank in the UAE to Absa in Africa — have already integrated Ripple’s rails this year.

With legal clarity in one of the Middle East’s most conservative financial jurisdictions, RLUSD now enters a market that has treated regulated stablecoins as foundational infrastructure and not just speculative assets.