ArabianChain signs JV with Curiositas for Islamic capital markets platform

Dubai: ArabianChain Technology on Tuesday said it had signed a joint venture with Dubai-and-London-based innovation firm Curiositas to create Wethaq, the world’s first platform for Islamic capital markets using smart contracts and legal automation.

Wethaq will play the role of a platform-as-a-service for financial institutions, fund-raisers and investors to use in the pre-sale, issuance, management and secondary trading of sukuk products.

Dimitrios Vourakis, managing director of Curiositas, said: “Our platform matters as there is an urgent need for automation and standardisation in Islamic capital markets. Financial institutions, fund-raisers and investors incur substantial operational costs and third-party charges in Islamic capital markets and face more complexity and intermediaries than those encountered in conventional markets. Wethaq separates the essential structuring services provided by financial institutions from additional services such as custodianship, and payments, and offers the latter on its automated platform.”