Economy of Scale: New Finance (Sponsored Content)

Because you're listening to this Bloomberg podcast, we thought you'd be interested in a sponsored podcast called Economy of Scale. Produced by Bloomberg Media Studios and the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism, it delves into the changing dynamics of business growth from technology to capital and investment. Here's a recent episode. Scale has become synonymous with Dubai, a metropolis shaped by constant growth. In 2025, the Emirate retained its position as one of the world's leading destinations for greenfield foreign direct investment. But scale isn't just about size. Globally, it can be the difference between success and failure, whether bringing breakthrough technologies to market or building smart infrastructure that will shape the cities of tomorrow.

Welcome to the economy of scale. In this podcast series we'll explore one central question. What's it retake to scale? I'm your host, Jake Greese, and in this episode we're delving into a type of scale that stands to reshape the world of finance. The growth of FinTech and how regulation, blockchain, virtual assets, and new forms of financial infrastructure are driving global change. To discuss this and more, I'm joined here in Dubai by Sean McHugh, Senior Director of Market Assurance at the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, also known as VARA, and by Reese Merrick, managing director for the Middle East and Africa at Ripple. Thank you so much. Both for joining us.

Reese, if I could start off. Can you expand on what Ripple does and how you've seen your growth journey of late? Absolutely. So Ripple are a digital asset infrastructure provider, probably best known in the market for our payments product, which utilises digital assets, notably XRP and XRP ledger, to move funds cross border in real time at a fraction of the cost. But we have evolved substantially as a company over the last few years now. Essentially, due to the demand of our products in terms of payments, we have released our own USD back stablecoin, RLUSD. We offer custody infrastructure now to some of the largest financial institutions in the market. And we've been busy in the acquisition world over the last 12 months. Um so lots going on. Fantastic. And Sean, VAR established in twenty twenty two. What are his core responsibilities and how has that evolved? Sure. We were the world's first dedicated virtual asset regulator. There's been a few that have jumped into space after and now quite honestly broader regulators of embracing the space at different levels. Our core mission was a setup not just to regulate the space within Dubai that already existed, but also to build up the space consistent with the D thirty three initiative by the Dubai government to expand and make this the city of London or Midtown Manhattan a virtual assets, you know, to kinda

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