First Abu Dhabi Bank Joins Tokenization Firm Libre for Collateralized Lending

First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Libre Capital, the tokenization specialist backed by Brevan Howard’s WebN Group and Nomura’s Laser Digital, to do blockchain-based collateralized lending using real world asset (RWAs) tokens.

Since going live in March, Libre has issued about $150 million of tokenized versions of Brevan Howard funds, Hamilton Lane's fixed-income type products, and a BlackRock money-market fund. Under the MoU, First Abu Dhabi Bank is piloting a credit line for approved lenders to provide stablecoin lending with those Libre issued tokens as collateral.

Holders of all sorts of crypto assets enthusiastically use their tokens as collateral to borrow against. In this case Libre, which already proposed the use of its blue chip RWA tokens as collateral on a MakerDAO forum in September, has brought a $335 billion bank into the mix. FAB will be handling liquidity through lending credit lines on Libre’s assets on public chains like Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, NEAR, Aptos and Coinbase’s layer2 network BASE.

Libre’s collateralized lending offering is part of an initiative the firm calls “Project HODL” (short for High-Yield Optimized Decentralized Liquidity).

“We've been working on adding utility to our AUM in the form of collateralized lending,” said Dr. Avtar Sehra, founder and CEO of Libre in an interview. “Essentially it's an on-chain infrastructure that allows these RWAs to be used as collateral. The lending is all in stablecoins, not in fiat, and is being provided through existing lenders, like broker dealers, or Laser Digital, and now they are getting credit lines from providers like FAB.”

At a signing of the MoU in the UAE, Sameh Al Qubaisi, group head of global markets at FAB said the Libre initiative underscores the bank’s commitment to drive innovation in the region.

“Through this initiative, FAB aims to enable secure credit facilities backed by tokenized assets, with automated processes ensuring robust risk management and complete regulatory compliance,” AlQubaisi said in a statement.