Binance appoints Tarik Erk as regional Head for MENA
Binance, the global cryptocurrency exchange regulated in UAE within ADGM and Dubai’s VARA appointed Tarik Erk as its new Regional Head for MENAT, overseeing the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey and Senior Executive Officer Abu Dhabi. The announcement comes as Binance not only adds three licenses in ADGM granted by the FSRA in Abu Dubai UAE, but also as Binance ended 2025 with over 300 million registered users, $34 trillion in trading volume, and $6.69 billion in scams stopped.
Erk has over a decade of experience in regulatory compliance, market expansion, product launches and government affairs within the digital asset and financial services sectors. In 2017 he was employed at Paxos in New York City, while before that he worked at JP Morgan Chase and Commerzbank.
“I am proud to take on this exciting opportunity at Binance as the company continues to navigate evolving regulatory frameworks and strengthen its presence across the MENAT region,” said Tarik Erk, Regional Head for MENAT at Binance. “I look forward to exploring new growth opportunities and helping shape the future of digital finance within the region and beyond.”
Recently Binance and Franklin Templeton collaborated to build digital asset initiatives and solutions for a broad range of investors. The firms will explore ways to combine Franklin Templeton’s expertise in the compliant tokenization of securities with Binance’s global trading infrastructure and investor reach. The goal is to deliver innovative solutions to meet the evolving needs of investors by bringing greater efficiency, transparency and accessibility to capital markets with competitive yield generation and settlement efficiency.
“As these tools and technologies evolve from the fringes to the financial mainstream, partnerships like this one will be essential to accelerating adoption,” said Sandy Kaul, EVP, Head of Innovation at Franklin Templeton. “We see blockchain not as a threat to legacy systems, but as an opportunity to reimagine them. By working with Binance, we can harness tokenization to bring institutional-grade solutions like our Benji Technology Platform to a wider set of investors and help bridge the worlds of traditional and decentralized finance.”
