Khaled Guerbouz.
Group CEO, Arbeat. “Building the regulated infrastructure institutions need to issue, trade, settle and pay for digital assets in one place.”
STANDOUT
4 layers
Exchange, OTC broker-dealer, payments and real-world-asset tokenisation, assembled under one VARA framework.
INDEX DOSSIER · KHALED GUERBOUZ
MAINTAINED BY FINTECHLY EDITORIAL · LAST UPDATED JUL 2026
- CURRENT ROLE
- Group CEO
- COMPANY
- Arbeat
- DUBAI
- BASED IN
- Dubai
- MIDDLE EAST
- REGULATOR
- VARA
- IN-PRINCIPLE APPROVAL
- FOCUS
- Digital-asset infrastructure
- INSTITUTIONAL
- EXPERIENCE
- 25 years
- 17 YRS FX, GCC
- STATUS
- Pre-launch
- FINAL LICENSING
THE LEAD-IN
haled Guerbouz spent 25 years in finance and markets, including 17 years in FX brokerage across the GCC, before turning to digital assets. His read is that the market spent a decade perfecting the wrong half of the problem: retail platforms made it effortless to buy a coin, while institutions were left without the governance, segregation, reporting and regulated counterparties they need to allocate at scale.
As Group CEO of Arbeat, the Dubai venture he leads, Guerbouz is assembling four connected layers under a single VARA framework: a virtual-asset exchange, an OTC broker-dealer, digital payment rails, and real-world-asset tokenisation. The bet is that whoever puts those pieces into one regulated venue, rather than four disconnected providers, takes the institutional market.
Arbeat holds VARA in-principle approval and is progressing through final licensing. It is self-funded, not raising, and entering a Dubai market already served by OKX, Binance, Kraken and Deribit.
THE FINTECHLY INDEX · NOMINATIONS OPEN YEAR-ROUND