ADGM is the abbreviation of Abu Dhabi Global Market. It is an award-winning centre working as an international financial entity. The centre is situated in the capital of the United Arab Emirates. Established under the supervision of the UAE Federal Decree, the jurisdiction of ADGM has extended to 114 hectares of the Al Maryah Island.
ADGM is based on three central independent authorities named the Registration Authority (RA), the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA), and ADGM Courts. These three authorities are working together to ensure a positive and friendly environment to operate in line with the best international practices identified by the significant financial centre located worldwide.
ADGM started working in 2015, and in just less time, it gained prominent recognition in the global market for being a robust and responsive business-friendly ecosystem. By collaborating and paying great attention to the essential business needs, ADGM has unveiled many “firsts” at both regional and global levels.
In short, ADGM is aiming to provide value to its peers and clients to motivate them to contribute to Abu Dhabi’s powerful growth plan and ongoing strategy. All it is aiming is to promote a convergence within the international financial standards and excellent practices.
Key features of ADGM’s foundation’s regime
- ADGM foundation works as a legal entity having its distinct attributes.
- It protects the privacy of the foundation’s arrangements and ensures that the Registrar can easily access any sufficient information.
- They are facilitating the migrations from the rest of the jurisdictions towards the ADGM regime.
What are the main objectives of the ADGM regulator entity?
A few of the significant objectives of ADGM regulatory entity are:
- Helps in fostering transparency, fairness, and high efficiency within the ADGM.
- Maintain high confidence and foster it within the ADGM.
- It ensures that all the financial markets in the ADGM are fully supported, and they are under an efficient and safe infrastructure.
- Maintain proper financial stability in ADGM, such as reduction of systemic risk.
- Improve the ongoing integrity within the ADGM.
- Restrain and prevent any conduct which can damage the reputation of ADGM.
- Offer a safe environment to the recognized bodies or the authorized persons.
Activities offered by ADGM
ADGM is contributing to presenting a wide range of solutions to all the financial service providers through licenses. These licenses are issued to dealers, bankers, asset managers, brokers, wealth managers, corporate financiers, insurance companies, etc. But on the other side, ADGM also caters to all those businesses not engaged with any financial service sector.
The reason why ADGM is attracted towards foreign investors is just that it is providing a broad spectrum of numerous business activities. This will include commercial, professional, family businesses, or multiple management functions. In addition, ADGM is even catering to the start of special purpose vehicles, holding companies, or the establishment of structures for protecting assets.
All the business activities which the ADGM offers have been categorized into retail, non-financial and financial activities. FSRA regulates all financial activities. Few businesses that are part of it include banks, asset managers, brokers, and insurance companies.
Few of the non-financial activities are broadly covering professional and controlled activities. Some of the non-financial activities provided by the ADGM are involving real estate, manufacturing, construction, education, or communication activities.
ADGM entails continuous monitoring to control the financial situation of companies and deal with their operational conditions. The process of monitoring is performed under the solvency and liquidity laws which are applied to all operations.
Retail activities are based on the manufacturing of jewellery, textiles, food products, machinery, leasing or rental of vehicles, photography, restaurants, art galleries, and much more. Different organizations are part of it, and more are yet to perform business establishment in a better scenario.
What are the advantages of ADGM?
A few of the benefits of incorporating an ADGM are discussed below:
- ADGM has a flexible ownership structure where it requires the minimum share capital. Multiple share classes are allowed, and no shareholders are needed.
- There is no such requirement to take the office space. However, ADGM requires a registered office address. This specific address can be of the corporate service provider or the agent.
- Plus, there is no requirement to have the corporate documents that need to be legalized or attested. In other parts of the country, this whole process is quite time-consuming and costly.
What are the disadvantages of ADGM?
A few of the drawbacks of incorporating an ADGM are discussed below:
- If you are leasing office space, then the facilities and premises in the ADGM are available with the higher corresponding cost.
- Being the new jurisdiction, ADGM has regulations and rules that are not tested compared to the rest of the traditional offshore jurisdictions, including BVI or the Cayman.
- Some law firms might find an issue where they are not given sufficient comfort for providing legal and clean opinions.
How to start a company with ADGM?
To start your company or the business with the ADGM, it would largely depend on the nature of the business and the business setup you have chosen. List of essential documents which are required for the business registration with ADGM are:
- Complete application form
- Passport copies of the owners
- Two new passport size photographs with white background
- Proof document of shared capital
Regarding the duration, the duration of finishing the ADGM process will vary on your application form. If you have filled your application correctly, the process will end in just a few days. Make sure your submitted application form is free from errors or any mistakes.
Bottom line
To sum up, the whole discussion, let’s ADGM one last time! ADGM is a centre of diversified financial services for different regional, local and international centres. All the established entities within the ADGM have 100% foreign ownership, and they are often subjected to the civil law, commercial and regulatory environment. Therefore, it is accountable to monitor compliance and enforce the requirements on the institutions under the commercial legislation of ADGM.