Abu Dhabi attracts a different founder from Dubai. Slower, better capitalised, more likely to be running institutional money alongside a retail book, and far more likely to have a lawyer involved before a single line of marketing copy is written. The technology questions that come to us from this market reflect that. They are about audit trails, permissions, data handling and who exactly can approve a withdrawal, rather than about how quickly a landing page can go live.
SINGUARD builds three things and runs them for you: the eTrader trading platform with its own market data feed, the Broker CRM, and the Prop Firm CRM. We are a software company. We are not a broker, a bank, a payment institution or an adviser, and we hold no permissions in the UAE.
The regulatory backdrop
Abu Dhabi Global Market is a financial free zone with its own courts and its own regulator, the Financial Services Regulatory Authority, applying a framework built on English common law. Firms establish inside the zone and hold FSRA permissions scoped to what they actually do. Separately, a company licensed onshore in the UAE deals with the Securities and Commodities Authority instead, a different rulebook with a different application route.
That is description, not advice, and we give no advice on any of it. What matters for the software conversation is that a firm inside a common law free zone usually arrives with a specific list: role based permissions, an immutable log of who approved what, exportable records, and a clear answer on where data physically sits. Our note on data residency rules covers the hosting question, and audit trails covers the logging one.
SINGUARD has no office, entity, licence, registration or staff in Abu Dhabi, the ADGM or the UAE. We are a software vendor serving firms in this market, and the team travels here for industry events. Licensing, client money and compliance remain your firm's responsibility.
What we actually deliver
eTrader is a web and mobile terminal: charting, order entry, alerts, a working economic calendar and a market data feed included in the package. The Broker CRM handles onboarding and KYC document review, client categorisation, account groups, per instrument spread and swap markup, deposits, withdrawal approvals and an internal exposure view. The Prop Firm CRM handles challenge products, the rules engine, breach evaluation, certificates, leaderboards, affiliates and payouts.
Everything is hosted and maintained by us. There is no server for your team to patch and no bridge to babysit. Once your firm's own licensing and paperwork are in place, we go live within 24 hours. That figure describes our side of the work only.
How firms in Abu Dhabi tend to be structured
Three shapes come up repeatedly. A single ADGM entity holding the client-facing permissions and running everything from the island. A group with an ADGM entity for regulated business and a separate offshore entity handling clients in regions where the ADGM permissions do not reach, which raises questions worth reading up on in our piece on offshore licences. And an established institutional firm adding a retail arm, where the platform has to sit alongside systems that already exist.
All three want the same thing from a vendor: no surprise dependency. That is the reason we ship the data feed rather than pointing you at a third party contract you then have to negotiate on your own. Vendor risk is a real category for a firm answering to a regulator, and the honest answer is that any vendor is a dependency. Ours is at least a single one.
Payments, banking and client geography
Banking a leveraged trading business in the Emirates takes patience. Firms in Abu Dhabi generally end up with a local operating account, card acquiring through a specialist processor, a regional e-wallet or two, and stablecoin deposits for clients in markets where cards decline constantly. Both CRMs run several processors in parallel with routing rules per corridor and reconcile them into one ledger. Payment orchestration explains why that is the sane architecture, and banking for trading firms covers what a bank asks before it opens the account.
| Operating detail | What firms here usually run |
|---|---|
| Client languages | English and Arabic first, then Hindi, Urdu, Farsi, sometimes Russian |
| Support hours | Gulf Standard Time, one shift covering the Asian and London opens |
| Deposit rails | Bank transfer, cards through a specialist acquirer, e-wallets, stablecoins |
| Common product | Swap-free groups offered alongside standard groups |
Time zones and the working day
Gulf Standard Time is four hours ahead of London and eight ahead of New York. The practical effect for an Abu Dhabi desk is that the Tokyo open falls in the local morning, London opens mid afternoon and the New York overlap runs into the evening. Most firms staff one long shift and hand the tail of the New York session to an automated flow rather than a night desk, which is where an assistant in the client portal earns its keep.
Talking to us
Alex Onta built eTrader with design help from Roman Onta and leads the platform. Alex Onta and Roman Onta built the Broker CRM and the Prop Firm CRM together and carry compliance, payments and corporate structuring between them. A call goes to one of them. Book a call or text us, and bring the awkward questions: hosting, exports, permissions, what happens if you leave.
Also relevant nearby: Dubai for the DIFC and onshore routes, and London for firms pairing a Gulf office with a UK entity. Everything else is on the locations page.
Where SINGUARD is based, and where we meet firms in Abu Dhabi
The team is in Dubai. Both Executive Directors, Alex Onta and Roman Onta, live and work here for most of the year, so a firm in Abu Dhabi is meeting the people who build the product, in your own time zone, usually within the same week you ask. Our licensed UAE entity is SINGUARD GLOBAL FZC, licence number 48523, registered at C1 Building, B.C. 1300450, Ajman Free Zone.
Everything else sits with the holding company. SGHK Softwares Limited in Hong Kong builds and licenses eTrader and both CRMs, and it is the entity your firm signs with, under one set of policies. Our licence never replaces yours: SINGUARD sells software, and your own broker or prop firm licence, your client money and your compliance obligations stay entirely with your entity.
In person, the place to find us is the industry circuit. The team attends Forex Expo Dubai and the other major shows, wearing the SINGUARD and eTrader shirts, and you can walk up without an appointment, ask for a live demo of the terminal and both CRMs, and talk to the Executive Directors directly in English, Italian, Romanian or Russian. See where to find us at the expo.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is SINGUARD registered in Abu Dhabi or the ADGM?
No. SINGUARD holds no registration, licence, office or staff in Abu Dhabi, the ADGM or anywhere in the UAE. We supply software to firms operating there and the team attends industry events in the region. Your firm holds its own permissions.
Who regulates a trading firm in Abu Dhabi?
A firm established in Abu Dhabi Global Market is regulated by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority, the ADGM's own regulator, under an English common law framework. A firm licensed onshore in the UAE instead deals with the Securities and Commodities Authority. SINGUARD plays no part in either application.
Does the Prop Firm CRM keep the audit trail an ADGM firm would expect?
Every rule evaluation, breach, payout approval and staff action is logged with a timestamp and an actor, and the record is exportable. What an Abu Dhabi firm must retain and for how long is a question for its own compliance advisers.
Can an Abu Dhabi firm run the platform under its own brand?
Yes. The terminal, the client portal, the emails and the certificates all carry your firm's name, domain and colours. Traders in Abu Dhabi see your brand, not ours.
Related Reading
Offshore broker licences compared
What the common offshore regimes actually permit and where they fall short.
FintechBanking for trading firms
What banks ask for before opening an account for a leveraged trading business.
Prop FirmsVendor risk for prop firm platforms
The dependency questions to ask a platform provider before you sign.