Robinhood (NASDAQ: HOOD) has set a 2027 target to launch in the Middle East after the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) granted regulatory approval for the firm's retail investing app in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). The announcement landed as the Dubai-based Bybit plans a move into Robinhood's home market in the United States. The mirrored expansion underscores how retail brokers and crypto exchanges are increasingly competing for customers across each other's home territories.

What Robinhood's Dubai license covers

The DFSA approval allows Robinhood to offer trading and custody across all 10 asset classes the regulator permits, including equities, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), crypto, and investment tokens. Coverage of every permitted category positions the app to serve a broad range of retail investors from a single regulated base in the DIFC.

Salah Kaddoura has been named senior executive officer and president of Robinhood MENA, leading the local team that will operate out of a regional headquarters in the DIFC and open the platform to local investors in 2027.

Robinhood Chairman and CEO Vlad Tenev noted the importance of entering "one of the world's most important financial hubs," as he described the DIFC in the firm's statement.

The Dubai approval extends a year of international expansion for Robinhood, which entered the Asia-Pacific region via Singapore in April and completed its acquisition of WonderFi in Canada in June. According to the company's own global expansion update, the broker counted close to 28 million customers across 38 countries as of July.

The DIFC that Robinhood is entering listed 72 authorized brokerage firms on its register as of March 31, 2026, and the roster has only grown since. Revolut earned in-principle approval from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA) in July, followed by local investing app Baraka in September. Older market entrants include eToro, which arrived in November 2023, and Interactive Brokers in 2024. Robinhood will thus arrive in 2027 to a market where global and regional rivals have already staked out positions.

Is Bybit expanding into the US?

Bybit CEO Ben Zhou is reportedly exploring an entry into the US through a broker that already serves American clients. The exchange has not committed to a launch date or partner, though Interactive Brokers has been floated as a potential fit. Any US launch would place Bybit in direct competition with established American retail brokers, Robinhood among them.

In the meantime, Bybit, which set up its international headquarters in Dubai in 2022, has continued to consolidate its presence in its home base. "Dubai has made significant progress in building a regulatory environment for virtual assets," Zhou said after the exchange secured a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) license from VARA for spot exchange services.

Peter Loo, the exchange's Chief Legal and Compliance Officer, is already looking at stacking fresh licenses, including for derivatives, "subject to the necessary regulatory approvals."

Building the platform before the market

Bybit's US ambition rests on a product it rolled out on October 12, when it opened trading in more than 1,000 US-listed stocks and ETFs, funded in the USDC stablecoin. Orders are executed and custodied by Alpaca Securities, a FINRA and SIPC member, with Mauritius-regulated Infra Capital Limited acting as introducing broker.

For now, the setup excludes US users. The exchange, which says it has more than 80 million users, is effectively selling American equities to everyone but Americans. The product gives Bybit live experience moving and custodying US-equity orders ahead of any committed American launch.

The service marks a shift from the stock contracts for difference (CFDs) Bybit has offered since June 2025, giving clients direct economic ownership of shares rather than a bet on price movements. The open questions are regulatory: whether Bybit secures a US partner and timeline, and whether its derivatives ambitions clear the approvals they remain subject to.