Crypto.com Wins Government Payment License From UAE

Crypto.com says United Arab Emirates residents can now use its platform to make government payments in cryptocurrency.

That announcement came Monday (May 11) after the UAE granted the cryptocurrency platform a stored value facilities (SVF) license, making it the first such virtual assets service provider (VASP) to be given this specific regulatory authorization from the country’s central bank.

“To be the first VASP to receive this license is an incredible achievement and proves our strong commitment to compliance and to advancing the regulated digital assets ecosystem in the UAE,” Eric Anziani, president and chief operating office of Crypto.com, said in a news release.

“We are always developing our presence in this forward-thinking, digital-savvy market and continue to lead the way when it comes to offering innovative products and services that are genuinely convenient and seamless for those who own digital assets.”

With the license, residents in the UAE can use Crypto.com to pay government fees using virtual assets. Settlements will be conducted in UAE dirhams or dirham-backed stablecoins approved by the UAE’s central bank.

“Crucially, as the only VASP to hold an SVF license in the UAE, anyone wanting to use these virtual asset payments services in the UAE needs to have been onboarded by Crypto.com’s globally-recognised, VARA-licensed platform,” the release added.

Once Crypto.com has gotten the required approvals from the central bank, the license will also let it initiate crypto payment integrations with Emirates Airlines and Dubai Duty Free, the company said.

The new license comes at a moment when the crypto world’s ability to provide seamless payment experiences has seems to have evolved, as PYMNTS wrote last month.

“The early promise of crypto payments was a disarmingly simple one of faster, cheaper and borderless transactions,” the report said. “The reality of that earlier era, as merchants quickly discovered, was anything but. Fragmented blockchains, volatile assets, inconsistent user experiences and opaque settlement processes turned what was supposed to be a next-generation checkout feature into an operational burden.”

Now, the trajectory of crypto payments looks increasingly to be aligned, and not at odds, with the larger evolution of financial infrastructure. At the time of that report, new U.S. legislation was created to let nonbank providers get access to the Federal Reserve’s core payment systems, including Fedwire, the FedNow® Service and ACH.

“Crypto firms, along with more traditional FinTechs, would be among the biggest beneficiaries of the bill,” PYMNTS added.