Fasset received a provisional license from Malaysia’s Labuan Financial Services Authority (FSA) to launch what the company said is the first stablecoin-powered “Islamic digital bank.”
The license allows Fasset, an all-in-one financial super app, to operate within a regulated sandbox focused on Shariah-compliant financial products, the company said in a Tuesday news release.
“We can now combine the credibility of a global banking institution with the innovation of a fintech insurgent that’s fully halal,” Fasset CEO Mohammad Raafi Hossain said.
Islamic finance refers to the financial system based on Islamic law (Shariah), which prohibits charging interest (riba), avoids excessive risk and uncertainty (gharar) and bans investment in harmful or unethical industries like alcohol, gambling or porn.
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Fasset expands into Islamic digital banking
The recent approval allows Fasset, which serves 500,000 users across 125 countries, to offer deposit-taking services, cross-border payments and zero-interest banking.
The Dubai-headquartered firm said it aims to replicate the success of NuBank in Latin America, but for underserved markets across Asia and Africa. The firm offers digital savings, yield products, and investment access to US stocks, gold and crypto.
Fasset also plans to issue a crypto debit card for everyday spending and launch “Own,” an Ethereum layer 2 built on Arbitrum for settling real-world assets. The firm has also received licenses in the United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Turkey and the European Union.
A license from Labuan FSA authorizes a financial entity to operate within the Labuan International Business and Financial Centre (IBFC), a regulated offshore financial center in Malaysia. The license is not equivalent to a full digital banking license from Bank Negara Malaysia.
Cointelegraph reached out to Fasset for comment, but had not received a response by publication.
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Last month, Visa launched a pilot program allowing banks to pre-fund cross-border payments using Circle’s USDC (USDC) and EURC (EURC) stablecoins.
The move came a day after Swift announced its collaboration with Ethereum developer Consensys and over 30 financial institutions to build a blockchain-based settlement platform aimed at enabling 24/7 real-time cross-border payments.
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