Robinhood has received authorization from the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) to launch its retail investing platform in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), with a planned 2027 rollout. The license permits trading and custody across all ten asset classes authorized by the regulator, including equities, ETFs, crypto and investment tokens.
Salah Kaddoura will serve as senior executive officer and president of Robinhood MENA, leading the local team from a DIFC headquarters. CEO Vlad Tenev said the move places the company in one of the world's most important financial hubs. The Dubai expansion follows Robinhood's Singapore entry in April and its acquisition of WonderFi in Canada in June.
At the same time, Dubai-based Bybit is weighing a US expansion through a broker that already serves American clients. CEO Ben Zhou has not set a launch date or named a partner, although Interactive Brokers has been mentioned as a possible fit. Bybit already holds a Virtual Asset Service Provider license from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) for spot exchange services and is exploring additional licenses, including derivatives.
Bybit's US strategy currently centers on a product launched October 12 that offers trading in more than 1,000 US-listed stocks and ETFs funded with USDC. The orders are executed and custodied by Alpaca Securities, while Mauritius-regulated Infra Capital Limited acts as introducing broker. The service excludes US users for now, but gives Bybit, which claims more than 80 million users, a foundation for entering the American market.
