UAE and Morocco sign MoUs to link payments, boost supervisory cooperation

Tightening supervisory and Islamic-finance ties

The Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates and Morocco’s Bank Al-Maghrib signed two Memoranda of Understanding at the CBUAE headquarters in Abu Dhabi, a move designed to close gaps in regulatory oversight and Islamic-finance coordination UAE-Morocco MoUs. Governor Khaled Mohamed Balama and Governor Abdellatif Jouahri pledged to exchange supervisory information, harmonise practices, and strengthen Shariah-governance bodies. The first MoU also targets cross-border Shariah-compliant financing for trade and infrastructure projects.

Linking payment infrastructure and digital currencies

The second MoU focuses on technical interconnection: instant-payment platforms, national card switches and financial-messaging systems could be linked to enable mutual acceptance of domestic payment cards and faster settlement of cross-border transactions. It further obliges the two banks to share expertise on retail and wholesale central-bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and to explore their use in bilateral payments.

Our read: The dual-MoU framework is notable for bundling traditional supervisory cooperation with forward-looking fintech initiatives. By pairing regulatory alignment with concrete steps toward payment-system interlinkage and CBDC pilots, the UAE and Morocco are positioning themselves to reduce transaction latency and create a testbed for digital-currency cross-border use. The agreements also extend to virtual-asset oversight, including crypto-assets and stablecoins, and outline consumer-protection mechanisms, indicating a comprehensive approach to emerging financial technologies. The next phase will likely involve technical integration work and joint policy development, setting a precedent for similar regional collaborations.