The Capital Market Authority (CMA) of Oman, which regulates and develops the Sultanate’s capital market and insurance sector, is finalizing the Virtual Assets Regulatory Framework for its official launch by the end of this year.
First announced in October last year at IFN Oman Forum 2022, the framework aims to regulate all digital assets in Oman, except payment-related systems and others that are already covered by the Central Bank of Oman.
In August this year, the CMA invited public feedback on the comprehensive framework, which had been in the works since 2020, confirmed Kemal Rizadi Arbi, an expert and advisor to the CMA, during an exclusive interview with IFN.
“In 2020, a task force was established to determine whether Oman should embrace digital assets or ban them altogether (due to the risks attached to them) like in certain countries in other parts of the world.
“However, we decided to actually embrace it, and so the task force started to look initially into anti-money laundering procedures (AML) and establishing an AML framework for virtual assets service providers to adhere to, as a first step,” Kemal shared.
The second phase is the establishment of the virtual assets framework.
“I think we can proudly say that we have had very positive and good feedback from the industry players, especially from the public. We would like the framework to be facilitative, open and attractive enough to actually encourage more players, especially international players, to come into Oman.”
This is an excerpt of a full IFN interview with Kemal Rizadi Arbi, an expert and advisor to the Capital Market Authority of Oman, on the upcoming virtual assets and bonds and Sukuk frameworks of the Sultanate. Listen to the full discussion on IFN Podcast.