In an insightful interview, Michael Chan, CEO of the UAE-based Zand Bank, offered deep perspectives on his company’s strategy and the future of global finance. Zand positions itself as one of the first banks worldwide to establish a real bridge between traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi).
Here are the key takeaways for the crypto community in Asia:
1. UAE Growth: Thousands of New Wallets Daily
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is well on its way to becoming a global center for virtual assets. Michael Chan substantiates this with impressive growth figures from Zand Bank, which he describes as “massive”:
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Explosive Wallet Increase: The number of new wallets is growing daily by “thousands plus“.
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Institutional Interest: Growth is no longer driven solely by the retail market. Institutions, corporate clients, asset managers, and family offices are entering the space, holding BTC and ETH as part of their investments.
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Larger Volumes: The average wallet size has increased from thousands to several hundred thousand, indicating deeper conviction and adoption.
2. AI as the Key to Efficiency
Zand uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to eliminate inefficiencies in traditional banking and differentiate itself from the competition.
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50-Second Onboarding: Zand can complete account opening, including due diligence, enhanced due diligence, and risk profiling, in an incredible 50 seconds.
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AI and Blockchain Fusion: Chan sees the biggest future dynamic in the “marriage of AI with blockchain” within decentralized networks. AI plays a crucial role in fraud detection and transaction monitoring in the crypto space.
3. “One Bank, Two Worlds”: The TradFi-DeFi Bridge
Zand is pursuing the mission of closing the gap between tradition and innovation. The new program “One Bank, Two Worlds” illustrates this approach:
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Integrated Wallets: Corporate customers who open a business account with Zand automatically receive a digital asset wallet by default. This simplifies the acceptance of crypto payments, as clients immediately have both their fiat account number and their wallet address.
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Regulatory Acceptance: The bank holds a Fitch Rating, which underpins its creditworthiness in the traditional financial world. According to Chan, this embedding in the “old world” is the crucial gateway for virtual asset adoption.
4. Tokenization of Real World Assets (RWA)
The CEO emphasized that the tokenization of Real World Assets (RWA) is a major focus.
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Dubai Pilots: Zand is involved in the first pilot programs for property tokenization in the UAE, where tokens were sold out extremely quickly (e.g., 2,000 tokens in 1 minute and 53 seconds).
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Benefits of Tokenization:
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24/7 Tradeability of assets.
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Lower Barriers: A bond lot of $1 million can be cut down to even 10 Dirhams, attracting more investors.
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The Top 3 Assets: Chan predicts that the three most popularly tokenized asset classes in the near future will be Gold, Property, and Debt (Debt/Money Market Funds).
5. Stablecoins Dominate Cross-Border Trade
A central topic was the role of stablecoins in global payments and the impact of US policy on CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies).
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US Exit: The decision by the US to assign a lower priority to the CBDC race means that the digital US dollar is out of the game for cross-border payments.
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Opportunity for Stablecoins: As a result, private stablecoins are gaining massive importance as they are used in global trade (worth hundreds of trillions) as an efficient settlement instrument to replace fiat transfers.
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Remittance Revolution: Stablecoins will drastically change the remittance market by enabling stable-to-stable corridors. This lowers costs and accelerates settlement from days to minutes.
Outlook on Humanity
When asked about the future of humanity, Michael Chan concluded with a visionary “Beautiful World”.
For the crypto community in Asia, the interview sends a clear signal: the bridge-building between TradFi and DeFi in the UAE, supported by regulation (VARA) and innovative technology (AI), is not just theory, but is driving massive adoption with exponential growth.