Flowdesk has been granted a full broker-dealer licence by Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), allowing its Dubai entity, Flowdesk Omega FZE, to serve qualified and institutional investors based in or accessing services from the emirate.

VARA’s approval is specific to broker-dealer activity, one of several distinct categories the regulator oversees alongside exchange, custody, lending, borrowing, settlement, investment and management services.

Under this licence, Flowdesk can execute trades, arrange transactions and source liquidity for institutional clients, within the boundaries VARA has set. The regulator’s rulebooks and Flowdesk’s own operating terms determine exactly which services are available to which clients — a full licence in one category doesn’t extend to activities covered elsewhere.

Flowdesk describes itself as a liquidity provider and virtual asset trading technology company, offering OTC trading, liquidity management and tokenised market services to institutional clients and token issuers across centralised and decentralised crypto markets.

From In-Principle to Full Approval

Flowdesk first received in-principle approval from VARA in June, a stage that lets applicants build out operations and close any remaining compliance gaps before a full licence is issued.

The company says the process pushed it to strengthen its governance, compliance systems, risk controls and institutional trading infrastructure, which marks an investment that CEO and co-founder Guilhem Chaumont says now underpins how the firm serves institutional and qualified clients in the region.

Chaumont called the approval a defining milestone for Flowdesk, pointing to the depth of work that went into meeting VARA’s standards and describing the UAE as central to the company’s growth in one of the world’s most significant virtual asset markets.

Part of a Wider Push Into Dubai’s Institutional Crypto Market

Flowdesk joins a growing list of crypto firms building out regulated, institutional-facing operations in Dubai. Kraken’s parent company, Payward, received preliminary VARA approval for broker-dealer, investment and management services in May, with plans that reportedly include dirham funding, OTC trading, margin products and access to Kraken Prime.

Bitpanda secured its own Dubai broker-dealer licence back in March 2025, while Crypto.com, Binance and BitOasis hold earlier approvals covering selected activities rather than blanket permissions.

Dubai has also tightened its rules around higher-risk products for professional investors. A crypto derivatives framework introduced by VARA earlier this year sets requirements around client suitability, leverage, margin, asset segregation and risk management, and gives the regulator power to suspend products or raise margin requirements during periods of market stress.

That framework applies to licensed exchange service providers and sits separately from the permissions granted under Flowdesk’s broker-dealer licence.

A Second Regulatory Approval in Europe

Dubai isn’t the only jurisdiction where Flowdesk has recently expanded its regulatory footprint. In June, France’s Autorité des Marchés Financiers authorised Flowdesk Europe as a Crypto-Asset Service Provider under the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) regulation, effective from June 30.

The authorisation lets Flowdesk Europe offer regulated crypto services across eligible EU markets via MiCA’s passporting system, building on the entity’s earlier registration as a digital asset service provider in France.

The two approvals sit under separate legal entities and regulatory regimes — Flowdesk Omega’s Dubai licence doesn’t grant access to EU customers, and Flowdesk Europe’s MiCA authorisation doesn’t extend to operating in Dubai.

Flowdesk has previously disclosed backing from investors including Coinbase Ventures, along with debt financing from funds managed by BlackRock as part of a funding package announced alongside an extension from HV Capital.