As geopolitical uncertainty, tighter liquidity and digital disruption converge, the CRO role is evolving from compliance gatekeeper to strategic business leader.

For much of the past decade, GCC banks operated in an environment defined by strong liquidity, rapid credit expansion and relatively stable macroeconomic conditions. Supported by high oil revenues and ambitious national growth agendas, the region’s banking sector became synonymous with resilience, scale and sustained growth.

That resilience has been tested in recent months and, so far, the sector has responded well. Recent banking data published by the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) and the Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) suggests that customer deposits have continued to grow despite heightened regional uncertainty.

Customer deposits increased by 17% year-on-year as of April 2026, and 2% from February to April 2026 in the UAE, while in Saudi Arabia, the growth in deposits was 11% year-on-year as of April 2026 and 2% from February to April 2026 , reinforcing both markets’ positions as regional safe havens for capital. Growth in monetary aggregates and non-resident deposits further suggests that regional and international investors continue to view GCC banking systems as stable, well-capitalized and resilient.

Importantly, there is little evidence so far of the capital flight or systemic liquidity pressures that some observers initially feared. Instead, the data suggests that the UAE and Saudi Arabia continue to play an important role as regional safe havens for capital, supported by strong banking fundamentals, prudent regulation and proactive central bank intervention.

Central banks have also played an important role. Proactive interventions helped preserve liquidity, support credit expansion and provide targeted relief to sectors facing short-term disruption. In the UAE, banks were able to extend working capital facilities and restructure short-term obligations for fundamentally healthy businesses, helping bridge temporary cash-flow pressures while maintaining confidence across the financial system.

As a result, resilience is no longer simply a measure of capital strength. It has become a strategic capability that underpins the sector’s ability to navigate an increasingly complex operating environment.

However, what is clearer than ever before is that the operating environment around banks is changing rapidly—and as a result, so is the role of the CRO.

The recent regional conflict accelerated that realization. Traditional stress-testing models were largely designed around financial shocks such as market volatility, liquidity tightening, and credit deterioration. What many institutions are now confronting is a far broader challenge, where geopolitical tensions, cyber threats, operational resilience, and credit risk can all influence one another simultaneously.
Across the GCC, this has prompted some banks to reassess whether existing business continuity and resilience frameworks are sufficiently equipped for a far more interconnected risk landscape.

This is particularly relevant in a region where regulatory frameworks have prioritized sovereignty, local data residency, and operational control. Recent events have also created an opportunity for institutions to reassess how these strengths can be balanced with greater operational flexibility and diversification, e.g., for digital data storage.

At the same time, a second structural shift is unfolding more quietly beneath the surface.

According to analysis from FTI Consulting, GCC banks originated close to $1 trillion in new lending between 2020 and 2025 across Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. Much of this growth took place during a prolonged low-interest rate environment and elevated liquidity conditions, meaning many portfolios, particularly across real estate and mortgage lending, have not yet been tested through a full economic stress cycle.

That could create a more complex operating backdrop for the years ahead.
For banks, the longer-term risk is not simply operational disruption. While business continuity and cybersecurity remain critical priorities, credit risk remains equally important. If short-term disruption were to evolve into a prolonged economic slowdown, pressure could emerge across borrower segments and asset classes, particularly in sectors that have benefited from strong credit expansion in recent years. In certain scenarios, a meaningful correction in real estate markets would have implications not only for borrowers but also for portfolio performance and risk provisioning across the banking sector.

This is precisely the type of forward-looking scenario that CROs must now anticipate, rather than simply respond to.

Modern CROs are increasingly expected to balance resilience, growth, operational continuity and profitability simultaneously, while helping institutions navigate a far more dynamic and interconnected operating environment. More importantly, the CRO can no longer afford to be purely backward-looking.

The institutions likely to outperform over the next decade will be those capable of identifying disruption early, adapting faster and embedding risk intelligence directly into strategic decision-making.

That requires a fundamentally different approach to risk management. One built around predictive intelligence, integrated scenario planning, dynamic stress testing and real-time decision-making.

Artificial intelligence and advanced analytics are becoming increasingly important in that transition.

Some leading regional banks are already investing in AI-enabled underwriting, early-warning systems and advanced collections capabilities that allow them to identify stress signals earlier and make more sophisticated portfolio decisions in real time. Others, however, continue to rely on fragmented legacy systems, manual workflows and reactive operating models.

That gap may become increasingly important during periods of disruption. Institutions that can identify emerging stress earlier, underwrite more effectively and anticipate portfolio deterioration before competitors will inevitably benefit from lower risk costs and stronger resilience outcomes.

Because in this new environment, resilience itself is becoming a competitive advantage.

The banks most likely to succeed will not necessarily be the largest or most conservative institutions. They will be the organizations capable of integrating risk more directly into strategic decision-making, modernizing operational infrastructure and responding dynamically to an increasingly volatile external environment.

The broader lesson for the sector is clear.

The GCC banking industry is entering a new era where resilience can no longer be measured purely through capital strength or regulatory compliance. Increasingly, resilience will be defined by adaptability and the ability to proactively anticipate interconnected geopolitical, operational, technological and economic disruption in real time.

Last year, while the financial press was busy writing obituaries for crypto and Bitcoin was sliding off front pages, something genuinely significant happened in global payments. Stablecoins processed $33 trillion in transactions, more than Visa and Mastercard combined, which together handled $25.5 trillion. That is not a rounding error. That is a structural shift in how money moves around the world, and it happened with almost no mainstream commentary.

By Raj Kamal

I have spent the better part of two decades in payments. I have watched the industry move from cash to card, from card to mobile wallets, from domestic rails to real-time systems. And I can say with some confidence that what happened quietly in 2025 belongs in the same conversation as those transitions. The difference is that this one was mostly invisible to the people who usually lead that conversation.

The Numbers Deserve Context

Before we get too far, there is a legitimate caveat worth addressing upfront. Not all of that $33 trillion represents the kind of payment activity you might imagine, a supplier invoice settled in Dubai, a remittance sent from a worker in Sharjah to a family in Karachi. A McKinsey and Artemis Analytics report from early 2026 stripped out trading activity, DeFi cycling, and internal fund shuffling and found roughly $390 billion in what they called “genuine end-user payments.” That figure, they noted, more than doubled from 2024.

So the honest version of the story is this: even on the most conservative read, genuine stablecoin payment activity doubled in a single year. And on the broader rails measure, stablecoins have now outscaled the world’s two largest card networks. Both of those things are true simultaneously. The volume growth is also not speculative froth. It is coming from businesses.

An EY-Parthenon survey of 350 corporate and financial institution executives found that 62% of current stablecoin users are using them specifically to pay suppliers. Ship brokers. Steel traders. Import-export businesses. These are treasury teams who found a faster, cheaper way to move money across borders and adopted it without waiting for permission from the mainstream financial narrative.

Why It Happened Quietly

Part of the answer is timing. The growth of stablecoin payment infrastructure coincided almost perfectly with a period of intense negative sentiment around cryptocurrency broadly. Bitcoin volatility, exchange collapses, regulatory battles in the United States, all of it generated enormous noise. Underneath that noise, a parallel financial infrastructure was being quietly assembled.

The other part of the answer is that stablecoins solved problems that the payments industry had been struggling with for years. Cross-border payments through correspondent banking networks are slow, opaque, and expensive. A typical international B2B transfer can take two to three days and lose 3-6% to fees and foreign exchange costs. Stablecoins settle in seconds, operate 24/7, and carry transaction costs that are a fraction of the traditional alternative. When you frame it that way, the adoption curve makes complete sense.

The incumbents noticed. Stripe acquired stablecoin infrastructure provider Bridge for $1.1 billion and launched stablecoin payment acceptance across more than 100 countries. Mastercard acquired BVNK, a stablecoin infrastructure firm, in March 2026. Visa settled $4.5 billion annually in stablecoins as of January 2026 and is integrating USDC into its core settlement operations. These companies are not making billion-dollar bets on a trend they expect to reverse.

The UAE Is Not Playing Catch-Up

This is where it gets specifically relevant for this region, and where I would push back on anyone who assumes the Middle East is watching from a distance.
The UAE has spent the last two years building regulated stablecoin infrastructure with a seriousness that few jurisdictions globally can match. The Central Bank of the UAE issued its Payment Token Services Regulation in mid-2024, establishing a comprehensive framework requiring 100% reserve backing for payment tokens and creating clear licensing pathways. This is not a sandbox experiment. It is a formal financial regulatory structure.

In October 2024, AE Coin became the first fully licensed AED-pegged stablecoin, issued through a partnership with Al Maryah Community Bank. In January 2026, the CBUAE registered USDU, the country’s first USD-backed stablecoin, with reserves held onshore at Emirates NBD, Mashreq, and Mbank. In December 2025, ADNOC Distribution signed an agreement to accept AE Coin across nearly 980 service stations across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. That is one of the largest retail deployments of a regulated payment token anywhere in the world.

At the same time, the UAE’s domestic payment systems processed more than AED 20 trillion in transfers in just the first ten months of 2025. The country is consistently among the world’s largest sources of outbound remittances, with a workforce that sends money to families across South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Africa every month. The friction in that system is exactly what stablecoin rails are designed to remove.

What Payments Veterans Should Take From This

I am not suggesting that traditional payment rails are disappearing. Visa and Mastercard are actively integrating stablecoins rather than being displaced by them, which is itself a significant signal about where the industry is heading. The more important observation is about infrastructure decisions being made right now, in this decade, that will determine which payment corridors are competitive in the next one.

The UAE’s approach, regulated frameworks, onshore reserve requirements, licensed issuers, interoperability with the Digital Dirham, is a serious attempt to capture a structural moment rather than react to it. Stablecoin transactions by value are projected to exceed $50 trillion in transaction volume in 2026 alone. Five to ten percent of cross-border payments globally are expected to run on stablecoin rails by the end of the decade.

The shift happened while people were arguing about whether crypto was real.

About the Author:
Raj Kamal is Founder and CEO of TransFi, a cross-border payments and stablecoin settlement infrastructure company that has processed over $1 billion in payment volume across Asia, MENA, Africa, and Latin America.

As Islamic finance enters a new phase of growth, the focus is shifting beyond expansion towards stronger governance, greater transparency, sustainable finance, and digital innovation.

In this exclusive interview with Charlotte Robins, Managing Director, Policy & Legal, DFSA, she discusses the regulatory priorities shaping the future of Shari’a-compliant finance within the DIFC and beyond.

How do you see the Islamic finance sector evolving within the UAE and the wider region over the next few years?

The UAE is a leading global market for Islamic finance. According to the Islamic Finance Development Indicator (IFDI), the UAE ranked fourth globally by assets and third based on financial performance and supporting ecosystem metrics in 2024. Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) is currently one of the world’s largest venues for the issuance of Sukuk, with more than USD 100 billion of outstanding Sukuk listings, including in relation to Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG).

Against this backdrop, the Dubai Financial Services Authority’s (DFSA) approach has been to support the continued development of the Islamic finance sector within DIFC by ensuring that its regulatory framework remains clear, proportionate, and aligned with market developments. This approach aligns with broader national and emirate-level objectives, including the UAE Strategy for Islamic Finance and Halal Industry and Dubai Economic Agenda D33, which aim to strengthen the UAE’s position as a global hub for international Islamic finance.

Within the Centre, we are seeing continued activity across Sukuk issuance, Takaful, asset management, and fintech solutions involving Shari’a-compliant structures. ESG considerations are also becoming increasingly relevant within Islamic finance, particularly in the Sukuk market, where investors are placing greater focus on disclosures, governance standards, and the credibility of sustainability-related claims.

We expect the Islamic finance sector to continue evolving alongside broader changes in global financial markets, particularly in relation to sustainability, digitalisation, and capital markets activity.

This includes supporting innovation whilst maintaining appropriate standards around governance, disclosure, investor understanding, and market integrity.

What developments in the market made this the right time to revisit and enhance the regulatory framework?

As the Islamic finance sector develops, products, business models, and delivery channels are becoming increasingly diverse. The DFSA’s approach has been to support the continued development of the Islamic finance sector within DIFC by ensuring that its regulatory framework remains clear, proportionate, and aligned with market developments. This includes addressing areas where greater regulatory clarity or consistency is needed for firms operating in the sector, which we have sought to provide in Consultation Paper 172 (CP 172), in which we propose enhancements to the DFSA’s Islamic Finance Rules Module.

The proposals are intended to provide greater clarity on when an Islamic endorsement is required and strengthen Takaful disclosure requirements. They reflect our broader approach of reviewing the regulatory framework periodically to ensure it remains proportionate, responsive to market developments, and aligned with international standards and best practices.

How important is regulatory clarity in encouraging further growth and innovation in Islamic finance?

Regulatory clarity is fundamental to supporting sustainable market development and innovation. Firms need to understand clearly how regulatory requirements apply to their activities, particularly as Islamic finance products continue to evolve and intersect with areas such as fintech, tokenisation, and sustainable finance.

Clear frameworks also support investor confidence. Clients should be able to understand the nature of the services they are receiving, how products are structured, the governance arrangements supporting Shari’a compliance, and the associated risks. This is one of the key objectives behind CP 172. The proposals seek to provide greater certainty around when firms require an Islamic endorsement and strengthen disclosure expectations for Takaful products. Together, these measures are intended to support clearer regulatory expectations, stronger investor understanding, and greater market confidence.

How do stronger disclosure standards contribute to confidence and trust within the Islamic finance ecosystem?

Disclosure standards play an important role in supporting transparency, investor understanding, and market confidence. This is particularly important in Islamic finance, where clients may wish to understand not only the financial characteristics of a product, but also how Shari’a-related features and governance arrangements operate in practice. In the case of Takaful products, for example, clients should be able to clearly understand how fees are calculated, how surplus-sharing arrangements operate, and whether additional contributions may be required.

The proposals in CP 172 therefore strengthen disclosure requirements for Takaful products to support better investor understanding and consumer protection outcomes. More broadly, consistent and credible disclosures are becoming increasingly important in areas such as ESG Sukuk and sustainable Islamic finance instruments, where investors are placing greater focus on transparency and sustainability-related claims.

Looking ahead, what areas of growth or transformation do you expect to define the next phase of Islamic finance?

We expect several themes to shape the next phase of Islamic finance development including:

The continued growth of sustainable Islamic finance, particularly ESG Sukuk and other products that combine Shari’a-compliant structures with sustainability-related objectives. As this market develops, disclosure quality, governance standards, and investor transparency will remain increasingly important; and

Digitisation, where we are observing increasing interest in Shari’a-compliant fintech solutions, including from issuers exploring the digitalisation and tokenisation of the Sukuk issuance lifecycle. Tokenisation can improve efficiency through faster settlement, enhanced transparency through distributed ledger technology, and broader investor accessibility with fractional ownership which enables smaller investors to participate – whilst maintaining Shari’a compliance requirements.

At the DFSA level, our focus will remain on maintaining a clear, proportionate, and internationally aligned regulatory framework that supports responsible innovation, investor confidence, and the continued development of Islamic finance within DIFC.