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Mal, the Abu Dhabi-based fintech founded by Abdallah Abu-Sheikh, has received in-principle approval from the Central Bank of the UAE to establish a licensed bank in the Emirates.
The decision marks the first formal regulatory step on the path to a full banking licence, and follows the $230 million seed round Mal closed in January, the largest fintech seed round on record in MEA, led by Hazem Ben-Gacem's BlueFive Capital.
In-principle approval doesn't authorise Mal to take deposits or operate as a bank, and CBUAE rules give applicants one year from issuance to satisfy the remaining conditions on capital, governance, and operational systems before a full licence can be granted. Mal has not disclosed an expected launch date.
The approval places Mal among a small but growing list of independent digital banking entrants licensed by the CBUAE. Earlier comparators include Wio Bank, the ADQ-, Alpha Dhabi-, e&- and First Abu Dhabi Bank-backed neobank that launched in 2022, and Zand Bank, which received its full CBUAE licence in mid-2022 with backing from a private consortium including Emaar founder Mohamed Alabbar, Franklin Templeton, Aditya Birla Group, and Lulu Group's Yusuff Ali.
Most other UAE neobanks (Liv, Mashreq Neo, YAP) operate as products of incumbent banks or under partnership-based licences rather than as separately licensed institutions. Revolut, by contrast, received CBUAE in-principle approval in September 2025 for payments licences rather than a banking licence.
Abu-Sheikh, in a statement, said the company was "working hard to launch the world's leading Islamic digital bank from the UAE." The positioning is consistent with how Mal characterised itself when announcing the January seed, though the company has yet to publicly disclose product specifics, target launch markets beyond the UAE, or a defined competitive frame.
Industry estimates of the global Islamic finance market vary, with Mal and several other Islamic fintech entrants citing a $7 trillion figure. Either way, the existing asset base is concentrated in conventional Islamic banks and takaful providers in Saudi Arabia, the wider Gulf, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Iran, rather than in cross-border digital institutions.
A small number of Sharia-compliant neobanks currently operate at scale globally, mostly in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia's Hijra Bank and Bank Aladin, and Malaysia's Be U (by Bank Islam) and Al Rajhi Bank Malaysia's digital arm.
Mal's stated rollout will begin in the UAE before expanding into the wider Middle East and Asia. The company has not named specific Asian target markets, though the largest pools of Muslim consumers outside the Gulf sit in Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Malaysia, each of which already hosts a mature local Islamic banking sector.
Mal Bank, the entity that will hold the UAE licence, is intended to sit within a broader group structure the company says will eventually span wealth, payments, and embedded finance.
Abu-Sheikh is best known regionally as the former CEO of Astra Tech, the G42-backed group whose consumer products, including PayBy, Rizek, and Botim, reach more than 150 million users across 155 countries. He exited Astra Tech in November 2024, selling his entire stake to existing shareholder G42, which took effective control of the group. Long Ruan, the group's CTO and co-founder, stepped in as interim CEO of Astra Tech.
Mal's leadership team has previously been disclosed as including former executives from Revolut and Nubank.
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