UAE telecom e& to pilot AED-backed AE Coin for consumer payments

Published: 2025-12-11 19:03:01 |

e& (formerly Etisalat) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Al Maryah Community Bank (Mbank) to pilot AE Coin, a fully reserved, Central Bank‑licensed dirham-backed stablecoin, across e&’s consumer payment channels. The trial will test AE Coin for bill payments, prepaid mobile top-ups, self-service kiosks and other digital transactions across e&’s platforms, aiming to enable millions of customers to use a regulated AED stablecoin. The initiative aligns with UAE digital economy and regulatory efforts (VARA, ADGM) to integrate licensed stablecoins into everyday services and positions AE Coin as a potential benchmark for compliant blockchain payments in the Emirates. The pilot follows and sits alongside other dirham stablecoin projects and institutional initiatives in the UAE — including activity from banks and state investors — that collectively increase focus on dirham‑backed stablecoins and digital payments infrastructure.

Neutral

The pilot of AE Coin is a regulatory‑aligned infrastructure move rather than a token launch intended to drive speculative trading. For the AE Coin stablecoin itself, price volatility is expected to remain minimal because it is fully reserved and pegged to the AED; that structurally limits upside or downside and thus has limited direct price impact (neutral). Short-term market effects may include increased trading and on‑chain activity related to integrations and liquidity provisioning by exchanges or banks, but these effects are likely operational and volume‑related rather than price-driven. Longer term, successful consumer integration across a major telco could raise adoption and transactional volumes for the stablecoin, increasing demand for related on‑chain settlement services and infrastructure tokens, but it would still not create speculative appreciation of the peg. Overall, traders should expect neutral price impact on AE Coin itself, with potential positive flow-on effects to ecosystem services and payment rails if adoption scales.