Zand is adding support for Circle’s USDC to its stablecoin infrastructure in the UAE, aiming to connect its Dirham-backed token with a widely used dollar stablecoin for payments and cross-border financial activity.
The UAE digital bank, backed by an Abu Dhabi ruling family-owned investment arm, Franklin Templeton, and Aditya Birla Group, said eligible businesses will be able to leverage both the Zand Dirham stablecoin and USDC for payments, settlement, treasury operations, trading and international transactions, subject to applicable laws and regulations.
Zand’s own stablecoin is fully backed by Dirham reserves and operates across multiple public blockchains. The bank describes it as the UAE’s first fully regulated multi-chain Dirham-backed stablecoin.
The planned support is expected to create a more seamless channel for moving value between UAE-based and global digital financial ecosystems. Zand said interoperability between regulated stablecoins could allow businesses to transfer funds more efficiently and support programmable financial services.
The bank said stablecoins are expected to play an important role in the UAE’s Digital Economy Strategy, which seeks to double the digital economy’s contribution to non-oil GDP by 2032.
