ADGM FSRA’s 2025 Report Highlights Financial-Crime, Resilience and Digital-Asset Supervision
Key Takeaways
- 01The ADGM FSRA identified financial-crime prevention, operational resilience, digital assets, cyber risk and outsourcing as significant 2025 regulatory priorities.
- 02The regulator reviewed AML and outsourcing practices, including governance, risk management and oversight of third-party providers.
- 03The report references amendments to ADGM’s digital-assets and fiat-referenced-tokens framework and increased regulatory use of technology and AI.
- 04FSRA granted 95 financial-services permissions in 2025, up 22% year on year, and 120 in-principle approvals, up 32%.
- 05FSRA finalized 38 regulatory actions in 2025 and imposed US$9.24 million in fines.
The Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) intensified its focus in 2025 on financial-crime prevention, operational resilience, digital assets, cyber-risk management and outsourcing oversight, according to its annual report. The regulator also expanded its supervisory and enforcement activity as the ADGM free zone grew: it granted 95 financial-services permissions, 22% more than in 2024; issued 120 in-principle approvals, a 32% annual increase; and concluded 38 regulatory actions resulting in total fines of US$9.24 million.
Pinsent Masons lawyers Marie Chowdhry and Jessa White said the FSRA’s 2025 annual report indicates the direction of ADGM financial regulation for institutions including fund managers, fintech businesses and virtual-asset providers. The report identifies the regulator’s continuing priorities as preventing financial crime and ensuring firms can withstand operational disruption, while also addressing increased dependence on technology, third-party providers and shared infrastructure.
Digital-asset regulation remains an area of FSRA attention. Chowdhry and White pointed to amendments made during the previous year to ADGM’s digital-assets and fiat-referenced-tokens framework. The annual report also refers to greater use of regulatory technology and artificial intelligence in FSRA supervisory and authorization processes, alongside policy and supervisory work affecting firms operating in the digital-asset sector.
The FSRA conducted thematic supervisory reviews in 2025 concerning anti-money-laundering (AML) controls and outsourcing arrangements. Its outsourcing review examined firms’ governance, risk-management processes and oversight of third-party service providers. The review reflects the regulator’s focus on the risks created by financial institutions’ increasing use of external technology providers and common operational infrastructure.
The report further records new cyber-risk-management requirements and enforcement activity, which the lawyers described as evidence of a maturing ADGM regulatory environment. The increases in permissions and in-principle approvals occurred alongside the FSRA’s use of supervisory, authorization and enforcement tools, indicating continued regulatory scrutiny as the number of regulated firms and financial-services activities in the ADGM rises.