Sanctuary’s Regulatory & Compliance team has deep knowledge and expertise, drawing on decades of experience as financial services regulators and providers in the US, UK and the GCC.
This means that we are able to provide tailored advice and solutions in all regional offshore & mainland jurisdictions - DIFC, ADGM, SCA in the UAE, QFC in Qatar and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s CMA.
Sanctuary can provide support to existing firms for specific projects - license expansions, compliance reviews, risk assessments and special projects as well as new entrants looking to establish operations.
Our team operates across the regulatory cycle, delivering advice, market intelligence, project management and key outsourced compliance and MLRO roles, from initial licensing and authorisation through to ongoing support for new and existing operations. We also work alongside our in-house Corporate Services team, to deliver establishment and commercial licensing seamlessly.
Our aim is to understand in detail your business model, and to ensure that you succeed in a compliant, robust and sustainable way, whilst delivering best-in-class compliance with regional regulators’ requirements and in doing so deliver the best outcomes with respect to your own clients’ needs and expectations.
We can cover all business sectors and have a particular strength in the areas of investment business, banking, financing, private equity, private and investment banking, asset and fund management, whilst being adaptive to other specialist and emerging sectors.
In the UAE, regulated businesses are those that require additional approvals and licences due to their impact on public interest or the economy. These businesses are subject to strict regulatory oversight and compliance requirements.
In the UAE, there are certain business activities that require additional approval and licensing. These businesses activities are subject to heightened regulatory requirements and monitoring to ensure legal compliance and integrity within the industry.
The appropriate jurisdiction for a regulated entity will depend on the nature of the business and its activities. The UAE offers a wealth of specialised jurisdictions in both the Mainland and Free Zone. These include the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), and Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) free zones, which are key jurisdictions for financial and professional services in the fintech and digital asset sectors.
This depends on the regulator, its available resources, its balance between risk-based and administrative requirements, but most crucially – the completeness and thoroughness of an application for authorisation, whilst also taking into account the nature, scale and complexity of a firm’s business, structure and operations.
This is where Sanctuary will add significant value – our role is to help clients to submit high-quality applications that satisfy and anticipate likely questions, articulating your businesses in a manner that is consistent with how each individual regulator defines their requirements, and in doing so ensure that firms “get it right first time” and in the shortest possible time.
This is really a question of the risk profile of a firm - both in terms of its operations (to make sure it meets its capital requirements at all times) and any assets it may hold and control on behalf of its clients.
Broadly speaking, the higher the risk-profile and exposure (such as counterparty risk, or market risk, and including risks to customers in relation to their relevant experience, understanding and net worth), the higher the firm’s capital requirements will generally be.
Sanctuary can help you navigate the impact of conducting various activities and how this translates into regulatory capital and reporting requirements. We will guide you in optimising the capital required by defining your core-activities and balancing initial start-up plans and the capital required with longer-term plans to reflect how your business develops, grows and becomes more established.
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