BNY Mellon Brings Digital Asset Custody to Abu Dhabi Institutions

BNY Mellon, a US global systemically important bank, has announced a partnership with Abu Dhabi-based Finstreet and ADI Foundation to develop regulated digital asset custody services for institutional clients in the UAE.

The initiative will initially cover Bitcoin and Ethereum custody for Finstreet's existing client base before expanding to ADI Foundation's blockchain infrastructure.

The three firms plan to operate from the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), an international financial center and free zone located on Al Maryah Island.

Hani Kablawi, executive vice chair at BNY, said the bank is 'uniquely positioned to connect traditional and digital financial ecosystems.'

The partnership is designed to eventually cover stablecoins, tokenized real-world assets, and other regulated digital instruments, though no timeline has been provided for those expansions.

The BNY announcement coincides with a separate initiative from Abu Dhabi-based stablecoin issuers AE Coin and USD Universal, who are developing a regulated conversion rail for near-instant exchange between the dirham-pegged AE Coin and the US dollar-backed USDU.