Overview
The SCA is the federal regulator for securities and commodities, and for virtual-asset activity that falls outside the Dubai perimeter held by VARA and outside the two financial free zones, ADGM and the DIFC.
It is the layer most often missed. A business picks an emirate, picks a zone, obtains the licence that zone requires, and never asks whether what it is selling is a security under federal law.
What it regulates
Public offers and listings, licensed market intermediaries, funds marketed in the UAE, commodities trading, and virtual-asset activity in the emirates that have not established their own framework.
The characterisation question is the important one. If an instrument is a security, federal securities law engages regardless of how the business describes it or which free zone issued its trade licence.
The CMA confusion, and why it matters
The UAE federal capital markets regulator is the SCA. There is no UAE body called the CMA.
The regulators commonly referred to as CMAs are elsewhere in the Gulf: the Capital Market Authority of Saudi Arabia, the Capital Market Authority of Oman, and the Capital Markets Authority of Kuwait. A UAE-licensed firm that wants to serve clients in those markets is dealing with foreign regulators and foreign law. There is no passporting into the GCC and none out of it.
We keep a separate comparison of those regimes under International, because the question a UAE founder actually has is not what a CMA is, but what is needed before the firm can take a client in Riyadh.
Who needs a licence
Anyone offering securities to the public in the UAE, operating a market or intermediating in one, marketing a fund into the UAE, or carrying on virtual-asset activity in an emirate where the SCA holds the perimeter rather than a local authority.
Interaction with other regulators
Dubai is the complicated case, because VARA holds the Emirate-level virtual-asset perimeter while the SCA retains federal competence. Arrangements exist between them, and a firm operating in Dubai should understand which permission covers which activity rather than assuming one covers everything.
ADGM and the DIFC sit outside the SCA perimeter entirely, under the FSRA and the DFSA respectively.
How we help
We produce reasoned token classification opinions applying the VARA, SCA, FSRA, DFSA and CBUAE tests to the actual mechanics, so the answer survives contact with a regulator, a bank or a buyer. Where the answer is that an instrument is a security, we say so early, while the structure can still be changed cheaply.
التداخل مع الجهات التنظيمية الأخرى
أسئلة متكررة
Is the UAE federal markets regulator called the CMA?
No. It is the Securities and Commodities Authority, the SCA. A Capital Market Authority is a different regulator in a different country — Saudi Arabia, Oman and Kuwait each have one. Getting this wrong in a filing is a small error that reads badly.
We are licensed by VARA in Dubai. Does the SCA still matter?
Yes, in two ways. Federal securities law still applies to anything that is a security rather than a virtual asset, and there are arrangements between the SCA and VARA that affect firms operating in Dubai. A VARA licence is not a shield against federal characterisation.
Who decides whether our token is a security?
Ultimately a regulator, applying its own test. The useful work is done in advance — a reasoned classification opinion that applies each relevant test to the actual token mechanics and records why the conclusion follows. That is what a regulator, a bank or an acquirer will ask to see.
المصادر
- SCA decisions on the regulation of virtual asset platforms and service providers — Decision numbers to be confirmed against the official gazette
- SCA and VARA arrangements on dual licensing and mutual recognition in Dubai