Crypto broker Rain receives initial approval for license with VARA Dubai

Bahrain and UAE regulated Rain, crypto broker and custodian with over 2 million users, facilitating the trade of $11 billion since its inception, has received under the name Rain MENA FZE, an In-Principle Approval (IPA) from the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA).

Once finalized RAIN will be able to offer exchange Services, broker-dealer Services, and crypto margin Trading. Rain has grown since its inception back in 2019. By 2023 it had traded almost half a billion dollars worth of crypto, today it has reached $11 billion.

As per the press release, the approval marks Rain’s entry into the Dubai market under VARA’s regulatory framework and completes its GCC licensing footprint.

With the VARA IPA, Rain now holds the full set of regulatory licenses available to a crypto-asset platform in the GCC: the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB), the Abu Dhabi Global Market’s Financial Services Regulatory Authority (ADGM FSRA), and VARA in Dubai. RAIN is also registered with MASAK in Turkey and seeks to expand into other jursidictions soon.

The approval also positions Rain to offer margin trading services in Dubai, expanding the range of products available to its regional customer base.

“Regulation is the foundation of trust in this industry. Holding every current GCC license with CBB, FSRA, and now VARA is a direct result of the standards we have built into Rain. It means our customers can operate across the region on a single, trusted platform”, explained, Laurent Girouille, Director – Rain Mena FZE.

Earlier this month Rain Financial Inc (“Rain”), the mother company of RAIN MENA FZE acquired Saudi Arabian Digital Ma’arefa, the financial media company behind The Finance Memo, Crypto Memo, AI Memo, and the broader news network.

Digital Ma’erfa has over 1 million followers across its combined network across the last five years. Digital Ma’arefa’s three co-founders Abdullah Mashat, Wael AlMutlaq, and Abdullah Fageih will be joining Rain. They care deeply about financial education and closely align with Rain’s vision of bringing crypto to every country in the greater MENA region.

Abdullah Mashat, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Ma’arefa noted, “The Digital Ma’arefa and Rain team share the same ambition: to deliver trust at scale through combination of financial media and regulated infrastructure”

Digital Ma’arefa’s team will integrate into Rain’s existing operations over the coming months, with no changes to the newsletters and news networks.