Zand adds USDC support for UAE cross-border payments
USDC (USDC)
Editor:
Eugene Serbin
cryptobriefing.com reports that Zand is expanding its stablecoin infrastructure in the UAE by adding support for Circle’s USDC. The digital bank, backed by an Abu Dhabi ruling family-owned investment arm, Franklin Templeton, and Aditya Birla Group, will allow eligible businesses to use both the Zand Dirham stablecoin and USDC. These assets can be leveraged for payments, settlement, treasury operations, trading, and international transactions.
Zand’s own stablecoin is described as the UAE’s first fully regulated multi-chain Dirham-backed stablecoin, fully backed by Dirham reserves and operating across multiple public blockchains. This move aims to connect the Dirham-backed token with a widely used dollar stablecoin to facilitate cross-border financial activity. The bank expects this interoperability to create a seamless channel for moving value between UAE-based and global digital financial ecosystems.
It believes regulated stablecoins will allow businesses to transfer funds more efficiently and support programmable financial services. Zand highlighted that stablecoins are expected to play an important role in the UAE’s Digital Economy Strategy. This strategy seeks to double the digital economy’s contribution to non-oil GDP by 2032.
The initiative is subject to applicable laws and regulations. This expansion supports the broader goal of integrating local digital finance with global systems.
How the market reacted
Whalio's own Binance spot order flow for USDC, measured when this story was written up on 26 August 2026. Not the outlet's figures.
USDC is trading at $1.0000 with a 1-hour buy ratio of 46.0% and a 4-hour buy ratio of 45.6%, compared to a 24-hour ratio of 47.9%. The volume delta shows net selling pressure of -$16,270,912 over the last hour and -$32,684,281 over four hours. Over the past 24 hours, the volume delta is -$119,312,698, indicating that sellers are dominating the flow. The buy ratio measures the proportion of trades executed by buyers versus sellers, so a figure below 50% means selling pressure is currently stronger. The volume delta represents the net difference between buy and sell volume, where negative values indicate more money is flowing out than in. Buying pressure is fading as the shorter-term buy ratios are lower than the 24-hour average.
The latest daily buy ratio of 50.2% sits at the 73rd percentile of the last 322 days, against a median of 48.4% - stronger buying than most days.
Twenty-four hours later
What USDC did over the 24 hours after the story broke. The market moves for its own reasons; this is what happened, not what the story caused.
Was that an ordinary day?
The same Binance spot measurements for USDC, averaged over the days leading up to the story.
Over the preceding week, the average buy ratio was 50.0%, which is 2.1 percentage points higher than the latest day's reading. Volume over the last day was 0.89x the weekly average, indicating lighter trading activity than usual. There were only 2 days of net buying in the past 7 days, suggesting this is an unusual period of sustained selling pressure. The 8-day volume delta total was -$162,776,293, confirming a consistent outflow of capital over the longer term. This contrasts with the 24-hour volume delta of -$119,312,698, showing that the recent hour's outflow is part of a broader weekly trend of net selling.