FAB Moves Digital Asset Portfolios In and Out of Komainu Custody for Collateral

First Abu Dhabi Bank has shifted part of its digital asset financing infrastructure into live operation, completing a two-way transfer of a digital asset portfolio into and out of regulated custody through Komainu. Both legs of the movement settled instantly.

The significance lies in collateral. A portfolio that can be moved into custody and pulled back out again is a portfolio that can sit behind a financing trade. FAB describes such transfers as a building block for institutional transactions, including repurchase agreements backed by digital assets.

The financing capabilities are already open to institutional clients, and the bank is working toward its first transactions that use them. The work brings the collaboration between FAB Global Markets and Komainu, a regulated digital asset custodian, into operational use, pairing Komainu's custody and connectivity with FAB's own infrastructure.

FAB says the transfers show it can move digital assets into and out of the custody environment, and that they validate the infrastructure institutional digital asset financing requires.

The plumbing matters more than the headline. Collateralised lending and repo both rest on an asset leaving a balance sheet and coming back on demand; a return leg that stalls is what turns a secured trade into an unsecured one. Instant settlement in both directions is the property that makes a digital asset portfolio usable as security rather than merely held.

FAB has also completed live tokenised deposit transactions with Citi through Swift Ledger, and issued a digitally native green bond on Euroclear's D-FMI, which it calls the first of its kind in MENA. The bank says its digital asset initiatives are meant to link traditional financial markets with the digital asset ecosystem and to develop institutional capabilities in the field.