WEBVTT
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So imagine trying to mix uh oil and water.
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Aaron Ross Powell Right.
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Two things that just do not want to go together.
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Aaron Ross Powell Exactly.
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Because on one side, you have the wild, decentralized, you know, totally borderless world of crypto stable coins.
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Aaron Powell Which is a technology basically born out of uh disrupting the whole concept of central banking.
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Aaron Ross Powell Spot on.
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And then on the flip side, you have the ancient, deeply strict, and heavily governed rules of Islamic finance.
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Aaron Ross Powell A system that is fundamentally built on absolute traditional oversight.
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Aaron Powell Right.
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So today's mission is exploring how combining these two total opposites is quietly building the blueprint for the future of global digital banking.
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Aaron Powell It really sounds counterintuitive, I know.
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But the friction between those two extremes is producing a wildly efficient system.
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Aaron Powell It really is.
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And for any of you listening who manage cross-border finances or run a business that deals internationally.
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Trevor Burrus, Jr.
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Or if you're just exhausted by how fragmented and slow current banking infrastructures are.
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Aaron Powell Exactly.
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The intersection of these two worlds gives us a concrete look at how money will actually move in the next five years.
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Aaron Powell And our roadmap for figuring out how this all actually works comes from a single incredibly detailed source.
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It's an interview from the May 2026 edition of the IBSI FinTech Journal.
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A really fascinating read.
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Yeah, they sat down with Rafiza Ghazali.
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She's the managing director of consumer banking at Facet, a role she just took on in February of this year.
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Right.
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Okay, let's unpack this because her resume is honestly the foundation of why this whole strategy matters.
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Yeah, you have to look at her background.
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She brings over two decades of experience spanning central banking, capital markets, and Islamic finance.
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But her crucial credential.
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The one that really stands out.
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Yeah, is that she is one of the rare executives in Southeast Asia to take a licensed digital bank, KAF Digital Bank, from its initial concept phase all the way through to a full, successful public launch.
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Aaron Ross Powell And that operational experience changes the entire conversation.
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How so?
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Well, taking a digital bank from zero to a live public launch strips away all the theoretical hype.
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Aaron Powell Right.
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It's not just ideas on a whiteboard anymore.
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Exactly.
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Ghazali's interview highlights a fundamental philosophy she pulled from that KAF digital bank experience.
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She calls it a clarity of purpose.
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Clarity of purpose.
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Yeah.
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She argues that customers do not adopt financial products out of curiosity.
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They adopt them because the product fundamentally solves a point of friction in their daily economic lives.
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Let's look at the mechanics of that clarity of purpose.
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I was thinking of it like a highly anticipated restaurant opening downtown.
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Oh, yeah.
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Everyone lines up on the first night.
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Right.
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People will wait around the block just for the novelty.
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They want to experience the hype, you know, take a picture of the decor.
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Maybe try the signature appetizer.
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Exactly.
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But they only become regulars if the service and the food are consistently excellent on a random Tuesday night.
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If the experience is unpredictable, they just never return.
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Which brings up a great question.
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According to Ghazali's interview, why do so many highly hyped digital banks hit a massive growth plateau almost immediately after their initial launch phase?
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What's fascinating here is how she attributes that plateau to the illusion of regulatory approval.
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The illusion.
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Yeah, because a banking license provides credibility, sure, but credibility is not utility.
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Just because you're legal doesn't mean you're useful.
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Exactly.
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Sustained growth does not materialize from short-term customer acquisition tactics, you know, like handing out$50 signup bonuses.
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Or running aggressive social media campaigns.
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Right.
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A bank has to continually refine its interface and its product suite based on real-world usage data.
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So if a digital bank launches a flashy app, but the direct deposit feature takes three days to clear.
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Or the customer support is totally unreachable.
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The user abandons the platform, they stop serving a daily need, so the momentum just stalls.
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And Facet is avoiding that a cold start problem entirely.
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They aren't launching a standalone app and trying to beg users to try it out.
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Right.
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They are taking an audience that is already in the building, so to speak, and offering them a better toolkit.
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Facet already has a massive global community engaging with digital assets.
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So Ghazali's strategy involves layering core banking services directly over that established user base.
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Things like moving money, daily savings, and investments.
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And the psychology of that layering strategy is just brilliant from a customer acquisition standpoint.
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Because the users are already there.
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Exactly.
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Facet lowers their acquisition cost to nearly zero for these banking products because they are integrating financial utility into an ecosystem where the user is already active.
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You don't have to convince a user to download a new app.
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No, you simply provide them a way to hold, save, or send the value they already have on your platform.
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And the volume Facet is already processing is staggering.
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The interview drops some major data points here.
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Yeah, these numbers are huge.
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Their platform boasts over$12 billion in annualized transaction volume.
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And in 2025 alone, their institutional user base grew by tenfold.
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Tenfold in one year.
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But I see a massive friction point here.
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Facet's stated goal is to make banking predictable, reliable, and deeply trustworthy for the everyday consumer.
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Yet the core technology they are utilizing to achieve this is stable coins.
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Which carries a lot of baggage.
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Exactly.
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Even if Facet targets a mass market, the word stablecoin still triggers alarm bells for the average small business owner.
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They associate anything crypto adjacent with volatility and risk.
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It's a huge psychological hurdle.
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So how on earth do you market this to people unfamiliar with crypto?
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Yeah.
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I mean, marketing stable coins to a traditional merchant sounds like trying to sell a luxury sedan by only talking about the fuel injection mechanics.
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Instead of letting them just feel the leather steering wheel.
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Right.
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Well, Ghazali solves that exact psychological hurdle by explicitly refusing to market the technology.
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Oh, really?
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Yeah.
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Her approach is absolute abstraction.
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You do not explain the fuel injection system.
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So what do you focus on?
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Ghazali stresses that a stablecoin-led strategy is entirely about the results generated by the technology.
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Faster settlement times, lower transaction fees, and verifiable transparency on a ledger.
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But the technology itself must remain completely invisible to the end user.
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So it functions as invisible plumbing.
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The user sees a standard, comforting interface, they type in an amount, hit send, and the money arrives.
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They don't need to know a stablecoin is doing the heavy lifting in the background.
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Let's dive into why that invisible plumbing is so necessary for cross-border movement, though.
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Yeah, because traditional international banking relies on correspondent banks.
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Aaron Powell Right.
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If you send money from Malaysia to a vendor in South America, that money doesn't travel in a straight line.
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No, it hops between multiple intermediary banks.
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And each one takes a fee and each operates on different time zones and settlement systems.
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Aaron Powell It's a mess.
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But a stable coin running on a blockchain eliminates all those intermediaries.
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Aaron Ross Powell Exactly.
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The settlement is peer-to-peer and near instantaneous.
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Think of it like upgrading a city from copper telephone wires to fiber optic internet.
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Oh, that's a great way to put it.
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Right.
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When an internet service provider sells you a package, they don't market the refractive index of the glass fibers.
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No, they market the fact that you can stream 4K movies without buffering.
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Exactly.
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FAS is providing the financial equivalent of buffer-free streaming powered by a fiber optic ledger that the user never has to understand.
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But you cannot test experimental, borderless financial plumbing on the open market without risking massive regulatory blowback.
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Oh, absolutely not.
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You need a controlled environment to prove this invisible plumbing is safe.
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And that brings us to the regulatory cornerstone of FACET strategy, which is Malaysia.
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Yes.
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In October of 2025, Facet secured conditional approval from the Labuan Financial Services Authority.
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And this isn't just a basic business permit we're talking about.
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No, it allows them to offer full-service digital Islamic banking within a regulated sandbox specifically designed for Islamic fintech.
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So here's where it gets really interesting.
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How do you marry the strict, highly traditional oversight of Islamic finance with the modern, borderless nature of digital assets?
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It's tough because the mechanism of making a stablecoin sharia compliant requires a complete structural overhaul of how digital assets normally function.
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Well, traditional mass market stable coins, the ones making headlines all the time, are usually backed one-to-one by fiat currency like the US dollar.
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Right.
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And the companies issuing those stable coins take those billions of backing dollars and park them in traditional interest-bearing bank accounts or government treasuries.
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Ah, so they earn massive yields on those reserves.
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Exactly.
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But in Islamic finance, the concept of Reba or generating money from money through interest is strictly prohibited.
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Aaron Powell So a standard stable coin fundamentally violates Islamic financial principles because its underlying reserves are generating interest.
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Aaron Powell Right.
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It's a complete non-starter.
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Trevor Burrus, Jr.
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So if FACET cannot use standard interest-bearing reserves, how do they create a digital dollar that holds its value without violating those principles?
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Aaron Powell They replace the interest-bearing cash with tangible Sharia compliant real-world assets.
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Okay.
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The source details a massive move FACET made to facilitate this.
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It was a memorandum of understanding signed in the fourth quarter of 2025 with Ajman Bank.
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Oh, Ajman Bank.
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Yeah.
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Ajman Bank provides decades of institutional credibility and rigorous Sharia oversight.
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And Facet provides the digital infrastructure.
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So together they are launching Sharia compliant tokenized assets.
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Yes.
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Instead of offering a savings account that pays a standard interest yield, they offer an asset-backed savings product.
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Aaron Powell Meaning the user's stable coin represents a fractional share of a tangible, rigorously vetted physical asset.
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Aaron Powell or a Sharia compliant commercial venture, exactly.
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The user gains the stability and potential upside of that asset while completely avoiding the prohibited mechanism of interest.
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That partnership bridges the trust gap perfectly.
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It really does.
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You have the absolute cutting-edge ledger technology handling the speed and efficiency enveloped within the deeply trusted, highly governed institutional framework of Adjmond Bank.
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So the user feels the psychological safety of traditional banking, but experiences the operational speed of the blockchain.
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And Lobe One serves as the ultimate proving ground for this hybrid model.
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Facet isn't just using the Malaysian sandbox as a regulatory loophole.
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No, they are using it to prove to the rest of the world that highly regulated, stablecoin-based, global Islamic banking actually functions seamlessly under the strictest possible conditions.
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Let's bring this macro level regulatory discussion down to the everyday user, though.
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We've established Facet has an existing user base, brilliant invisible plumbing, and the strict oversight of Islamic finance in a Malaysian sandbox.
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Right.
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How does this ecosystem directly benefit the end consumer sitting in an emerging market?
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Well, Ghazali frames the consumer benefit around a very specific definition of inclusion.
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Financial inclusion is such a buzzword these days.
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It is, but Ghazali defines it as making financial services accessible and cost-effective without ever lowering security and governance standards.
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Because in emerging markets, the existing financial infrastructure is notoriously fragmented.
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Exactly.
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Moving money domestically might require one app, while sending remittances requires a different provider with exorbitant fees.
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And accessing dollar-denominated savings requires yet another institution.
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Aaron Powell Right.
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It's a headache.
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So Facet is building a consolidated platform designed around the reality of how people actually earn, spend, and preserve their wealth across borders.
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It functions entirely like a universal travel adapter for your money.
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Oh, I like that analogy.
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Yeah.
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I mean, anyone who travels internationally knows the headache of carrying five different plugs for different wall outlets.
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It's the worst.
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Current cross-border banking forces you to switch providers, pay exchange fees, and navigate different apps at every single stop.
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Right.
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But Facet is building the universal adapter.
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It's a single interface where a user can securely hold their value, access asset-backed savings, and instantly transact globally without ever leaving the ecosystem.
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The travel adapter analogy captures the user experience beautifully, but uh it slightly underplays the immense regulatory reality Facet faces as they expand.
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What do you mean?
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Well, a physical travel adapter assumes you can just plug the same piece of plastic into any wall anywhere in the world.
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In global banking, every jurisdiction operates on entirely different legal frameworks, capital requirements, and consumer protection laws.
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So as Facet scales this universal adapter to other jurisdictions, how do they avoid compromising the strict governance standards they set up in Malaysia?
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They face a staggering compliance challenge.
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If we connect this to the bigger picture, this is where Ghazali's core philosophy for Facet's five-year vision comes into play.
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Right.
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In the interview, she explicitly states that scale follows consistency.
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Exactly.
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She understands that you cannot brute force global expansion.
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Her five-year ambition is for Facet to operate as a fully integrated digital bank across multiple key global markets.
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But to achieve that without breaking the compliance structures they've built, they have to use the Labuan model as a replicable blueprint.
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Precisely.
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By meticulously proving the safety and utility of core banking combined with regulated digital assets in Malaysia, they generate a verifiable track record.
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And then they take that exact proven model and deliberately pursue licenses in new jurisdictions.
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Adapting to local frameworks while refusing to dilute their own internal governance standards.
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They build it perfectly once and scale the consistency.
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So what does this all mean for the broader landscape of how we handle our money?
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Whoa.
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Looking at Rafiza Ghazali's strategy, the defining takeaway is that the future of banking will not be defined by the loudest, most aggressive crypto apps shouting about digital disruption.
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No, the real revolution is incredibly quiet.
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Aaron Powell It is about taking brilliant, lightning-fast blockchain technology and burying it deep in the background.
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Right.
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It is about using strict traditional regulation like Sharia compliance to legitimize that technology.
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Aaron Powell And using it to solve the painfully boring but vital everyday friction of moving value safely across borders.
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For any of you listening, whether you are a supply chain manager paying vendors across three different continents or just someone trying to send money overseas to your family.
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This strategy of prioritizing quiet consistency over loud hype will dictate the financial tools you adopt in the coming decade.
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Absolutely.
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The most successful financial platforms will be the ones that make the friction of money movement completely disappear from your view.
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Disappear entirely.
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Yeah.
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And consider the implications of that kind of disappearance.
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Okay.
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If the most advanced, complex blockchain technologies, the exact systems generating endless headlines and debates today, are ultimately destined to become completely invisible to the end user, quietly operating behind the scenes of asset-backed, zero infinite accounts.
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Wow.
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What other loud, highly debated, disruptive technologies currently dominating our news cycles are simply waiting to vanish into the mundane background plumbing of our everyday lives?
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That is a staggering question to consider, especially when you look at how much energy we spend tracking the hype of new tech rather than waiting for it to actually become seamlessly useful.
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It really puts things in perspective.
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It does.
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Our goal today was to explore how the chaotic maze of international banking is being transformed into a seamless solid vault.
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And finding out that the secret is just hiding the cutting of tech behind ancient rules is exactly why we do these deep dives.
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Keep questioning the world around you.
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Keep looking for the invisible plumbing, making everything work, and we will catch you next time.
00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:03.279
So imagine trying to mix uh oil and water.
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Aaron Ross Powell Right.
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Two things that just do not want to go together.
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Aaron Ross Powell Exactly.
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Because on one side, you have the wild, decentralized, you know, totally borderless world of crypto stable coins.
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Aaron Powell Which is a technology basically born out of uh disrupting the whole concept of central banking.
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Aaron Ross Powell Spot on.
00:00:21.280 --> 00:00:27.600
And then on the flip side, you have the ancient, deeply strict, and heavily governed rules of Islamic finance.
00:00:27.760 --> 00:00:31.600
Aaron Ross Powell A system that is fundamentally built on absolute traditional oversight.
00:00:31.679 --> 00:00:32.240
Aaron Powell Right.
00:00:32.560 --> 00:00:41.200
So today's mission is exploring how combining these two total opposites is quietly building the blueprint for the future of global digital banking.
00:00:41.280 --> 00:00:43.280
Aaron Powell It really sounds counterintuitive, I know.
00:00:43.600 --> 00:00:47.439
But the friction between those two extremes is producing a wildly efficient system.
00:00:47.520 --> 00:00:48.320
Aaron Powell It really is.
00:00:48.640 --> 00:00:53.520
And for any of you listening who manage cross-border finances or run a business that deals internationally.
00:00:53.600 --> 00:00:53.759
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
00:00:53.920 --> 00:00:58.000
Or if you're just exhausted by how fragmented and slow current banking infrastructures are.
00:00:58.079 --> 00:00:58.719
Aaron Powell Exactly.
00:00:58.880 --> 00:01:03.920
The intersection of these two worlds gives us a concrete look at how money will actually move in the next five years.
00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:11.200
Aaron Powell And our roadmap for figuring out how this all actually works comes from a single incredibly detailed source.
00:01:11.840 --> 00:01:17.280
It's an interview from the May 2026 edition of the IBSI FinTech Journal.
00:01:17.680 --> 00:01:18.879
A really fascinating read.
00:01:19.280 --> 00:01:21.439
Yeah, they sat down with Rafiza Ghazali.
00:01:21.760 --> 00:01:27.519
She's the managing director of consumer banking at Facet, a role she just took on in February of this year.
00:01:27.760 --> 00:01:27.920
Right.
00:01:28.319 --> 00:01:32.879
Okay, let's unpack this because her resume is honestly the foundation of why this whole strategy matters.
00:01:33.280 --> 00:01:34.480
Yeah, you have to look at her background.
00:01:34.799 --> 00:01:40.719
She brings over two decades of experience spanning central banking, capital markets, and Islamic finance.
00:01:41.040 --> 00:01:42.640
But her crucial credential.
00:01:43.040 --> 00:01:44.079
The one that really stands out.
00:01:44.400 --> 00:01:56.879
Yeah, is that she is one of the rare executives in Southeast Asia to take a licensed digital bank, KAF Digital Bank, from its initial concept phase all the way through to a full, successful public launch.
00:01:56.959 --> 00:02:00.560
Aaron Ross Powell And that operational experience changes the entire conversation.
00:02:00.959 --> 00:02:01.280
How so?
00:02:01.599 --> 00:02:07.280
Well, taking a digital bank from zero to a live public launch strips away all the theoretical hype.
00:02:07.359 --> 00:02:07.760
Aaron Powell Right.
00:02:07.840 --> 00:02:09.599
It's not just ideas on a whiteboard anymore.
00:02:10.159 --> 00:02:10.879
Exactly.
00:02:11.120 --> 00:02:17.280
Ghazali's interview highlights a fundamental philosophy she pulled from that KAF digital bank experience.
00:02:17.520 --> 00:02:19.439
She calls it a clarity of purpose.
00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:20.639
Clarity of purpose.
00:02:20.960 --> 00:02:21.120
Yeah.
00:02:21.280 --> 00:02:25.840
She argues that customers do not adopt financial products out of curiosity.
00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:31.840
They adopt them because the product fundamentally solves a point of friction in their daily economic lives.
00:02:32.319 --> 00:02:34.639
Let's look at the mechanics of that clarity of purpose.
00:02:34.879 --> 00:02:39.280
I was thinking of it like a highly anticipated restaurant opening downtown.
00:02:39.599 --> 00:02:40.080
Oh, yeah.
00:02:40.240 --> 00:02:41.680
Everyone lines up on the first night.
00:02:41.919 --> 00:02:42.159
Right.
00:02:42.240 --> 00:02:44.400
People will wait around the block just for the novelty.
00:02:44.479 --> 00:02:46.879
They want to experience the hype, you know, take a picture of the decor.
00:02:47.360 --> 00:02:48.960
Maybe try the signature appetizer.
00:02:49.280 --> 00:02:49.919
Exactly.
00:02:50.560 --> 00:02:56.560
But they only become regulars if the service and the food are consistently excellent on a random Tuesday night.
00:02:56.879 --> 00:02:59.759
If the experience is unpredictable, they just never return.
00:03:00.159 --> 00:03:01.680
Which brings up a great question.
00:03:01.919 --> 00:03:11.520
According to Ghazali's interview, why do so many highly hyped digital banks hit a massive growth plateau almost immediately after their initial launch phase?
00:03:11.840 --> 00:03:16.639
What's fascinating here is how she attributes that plateau to the illusion of regulatory approval.
00:03:17.039 --> 00:03:17.599
The illusion.
00:03:17.840 --> 00:03:22.800
Yeah, because a banking license provides credibility, sure, but credibility is not utility.
00:03:24.400 --> 00:03:26.319
Just because you're legal doesn't mean you're useful.
00:03:26.639 --> 00:03:27.199
Exactly.
00:03:27.439 --> 00:03:34.639
Sustained growth does not materialize from short-term customer acquisition tactics, you know, like handing out$50 signup bonuses.
00:03:35.120 --> 00:03:37.199
Or running aggressive social media campaigns.
00:03:37.599 --> 00:03:37.919
Right.
00:03:38.159 --> 00:03:45.120
A bank has to continually refine its interface and its product suite based on real-world usage data.
00:03:45.599 --> 00:03:51.680
So if a digital bank launches a flashy app, but the direct deposit feature takes three days to clear.
00:03:52.080 --> 00:03:54.159
Or the customer support is totally unreachable.
00:03:54.560 --> 00:03:59.360
The user abandons the platform, they stop serving a daily need, so the momentum just stalls.
00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:02.719
And Facet is avoiding that a cold start problem entirely.
00:04:02.879 --> 00:04:06.240
They aren't launching a standalone app and trying to beg users to try it out.
00:04:06.639 --> 00:04:06.800
Right.
00:04:06.879 --> 00:04:12.400
They are taking an audience that is already in the building, so to speak, and offering them a better toolkit.
00:04:13.039 --> 00:04:17.360
Facet already has a massive global community engaging with digital assets.
00:04:17.759 --> 00:04:24.639
So Ghazali's strategy involves layering core banking services directly over that established user base.
00:04:24.800 --> 00:04:28.160
Things like moving money, daily savings, and investments.
00:04:28.480 --> 00:04:32.879
And the psychology of that layering strategy is just brilliant from a customer acquisition standpoint.
00:04:33.279 --> 00:04:34.399
Because the users are already there.
00:04:34.720 --> 00:04:35.199
Exactly.
00:04:35.439 --> 00:04:46.240
Facet lowers their acquisition cost to nearly zero for these banking products because they are integrating financial utility into an ecosystem where the user is already active.
00:04:46.639 --> 00:04:48.959
You don't have to convince a user to download a new app.
00:04:49.279 --> 00:04:54.480
No, you simply provide them a way to hold, save, or send the value they already have on your platform.
00:04:54.879 --> 00:04:58.319
And the volume Facet is already processing is staggering.
00:04:58.560 --> 00:05:01.199
The interview drops some major data points here.
00:05:01.519 --> 00:05:02.720
Yeah, these numbers are huge.
00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:07.439
Their platform boasts over$12 billion in annualized transaction volume.
00:05:07.680 --> 00:05:12.160
And in 2025 alone, their institutional user base grew by tenfold.
00:05:12.399 --> 00:05:13.519
Tenfold in one year.
00:05:13.839 --> 00:05:15.839
But I see a massive friction point here.
00:05:16.079 --> 00:05:22.560
Facet's stated goal is to make banking predictable, reliable, and deeply trustworthy for the everyday consumer.
00:05:22.720 --> 00:05:27.360
Yet the core technology they are utilizing to achieve this is stable coins.
00:05:27.759 --> 00:05:29.199
Which carries a lot of baggage.
00:05:29.439 --> 00:05:30.000
Exactly.
00:05:30.160 --> 00:05:37.040
Even if Facet targets a mass market, the word stablecoin still triggers alarm bells for the average small business owner.
00:05:37.759 --> 00:05:41.839
They associate anything crypto adjacent with volatility and risk.
00:05:42.160 --> 00:05:44.079
It's a huge psychological hurdle.
00:05:44.399 --> 00:05:47.759
So how on earth do you market this to people unfamiliar with crypto?
00:05:47.920 --> 00:05:48.079
Yeah.
00:05:48.319 --> 00:05:55.439
I mean, marketing stable coins to a traditional merchant sounds like trying to sell a luxury sedan by only talking about the fuel injection mechanics.
00:05:55.839 --> 00:05:58.079
Instead of letting them just feel the leather steering wheel.
00:05:58.319 --> 00:05:58.480
Right.
00:05:58.639 --> 00:06:04.000
Well, Ghazali solves that exact psychological hurdle by explicitly refusing to market the technology.
00:06:04.319 --> 00:06:04.720
Oh, really?
00:06:04.959 --> 00:06:05.120
Yeah.
00:06:05.199 --> 00:06:07.519
Her approach is absolute abstraction.
00:06:07.680 --> 00:06:09.680
You do not explain the fuel injection system.
00:06:10.160 --> 00:06:11.040
So what do you focus on?
00:06:11.360 --> 00:06:17.040
Ghazali stresses that a stablecoin-led strategy is entirely about the results generated by the technology.
00:06:17.199 --> 00:06:23.120
Faster settlement times, lower transaction fees, and verifiable transparency on a ledger.
00:06:23.360 --> 00:06:27.279
But the technology itself must remain completely invisible to the end user.
00:06:27.680 --> 00:06:29.759
So it functions as invisible plumbing.
00:06:30.480 --> 00:06:36.319
The user sees a standard, comforting interface, they type in an amount, hit send, and the money arrives.
00:06:37.199 --> 00:06:40.480
They don't need to know a stablecoin is doing the heavy lifting in the background.
00:06:41.120 --> 00:06:45.360
Let's dive into why that invisible plumbing is so necessary for cross-border movement, though.
00:06:45.680 --> 00:06:49.680
Yeah, because traditional international banking relies on correspondent banks.
00:06:49.759 --> 00:06:50.319
Aaron Powell Right.
00:06:50.399 --> 00:06:56.240
If you send money from Malaysia to a vendor in South America, that money doesn't travel in a straight line.
00:06:56.639 --> 00:07:00.000
No, it hops between multiple intermediary banks.
00:07:00.160 --> 00:07:04.720
And each one takes a fee and each operates on different time zones and settlement systems.
00:07:04.800 --> 00:07:05.920
Aaron Powell It's a mess.
00:07:06.319 --> 00:07:10.319
But a stable coin running on a blockchain eliminates all those intermediaries.
00:07:10.399 --> 00:07:11.120
Aaron Ross Powell Exactly.
00:07:11.279 --> 00:07:13.839
The settlement is peer-to-peer and near instantaneous.
00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:19.199
Think of it like upgrading a city from copper telephone wires to fiber optic internet.
00:07:19.600 --> 00:07:20.639
Oh, that's a great way to put it.
00:07:20.879 --> 00:07:21.040
Right.
00:07:21.120 --> 00:07:26.319
When an internet service provider sells you a package, they don't market the refractive index of the glass fibers.
00:07:26.639 --> 00:07:30.079
No, they market the fact that you can stream 4K movies without buffering.
00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:31.199
Exactly.
00:07:31.439 --> 00:07:39.199
FAS is providing the financial equivalent of buffer-free streaming powered by a fiber optic ledger that the user never has to understand.
00:07:39.600 --> 00:07:47.279
But you cannot test experimental, borderless financial plumbing on the open market without risking massive regulatory blowback.
00:07:47.600 --> 00:07:48.319
Oh, absolutely not.
00:07:48.639 --> 00:07:52.160
You need a controlled environment to prove this invisible plumbing is safe.
00:07:52.399 --> 00:07:56.959
And that brings us to the regulatory cornerstone of FACET strategy, which is Malaysia.
00:07:57.199 --> 00:07:57.600
Yes.
00:07:57.839 --> 00:08:04.000
In October of 2025, Facet secured conditional approval from the Labuan Financial Services Authority.
00:08:04.399 --> 00:08:07.120
And this isn't just a basic business permit we're talking about.
00:08:07.439 --> 00:08:15.600
No, it allows them to offer full-service digital Islamic banking within a regulated sandbox specifically designed for Islamic fintech.
00:08:16.240 --> 00:08:17.759
So here's where it gets really interesting.
00:08:17.920 --> 00:08:25.360
How do you marry the strict, highly traditional oversight of Islamic finance with the modern, borderless nature of digital assets?
00:08:25.839 --> 00:08:34.000
It's tough because the mechanism of making a stablecoin sharia compliant requires a complete structural overhaul of how digital assets normally function.
00:08:34.320 --> 00:08:43.120
Well, traditional mass market stable coins, the ones making headlines all the time, are usually backed one-to-one by fiat currency like the US dollar.
00:08:43.360 --> 00:08:43.679
Right.
00:08:43.840 --> 00:08:52.559
And the companies issuing those stable coins take those billions of backing dollars and park them in traditional interest-bearing bank accounts or government treasuries.
00:08:52.879 --> 00:08:55.360
Ah, so they earn massive yields on those reserves.
00:08:55.759 --> 00:08:56.320
Exactly.
00:08:56.480 --> 00:09:03.840
But in Islamic finance, the concept of Reba or generating money from money through interest is strictly prohibited.
00:09:03.919 --> 00:09:11.120
Aaron Powell So a standard stable coin fundamentally violates Islamic financial principles because its underlying reserves are generating interest.
00:09:11.200 --> 00:09:11.600
Aaron Powell Right.
00:09:11.679 --> 00:09:12.960
It's a complete non-starter.
00:09:13.120 --> 00:09:13.279
Trevor Burrus, Jr.
00:09:13.360 --> 00:09:21.679
So if FACET cannot use standard interest-bearing reserves, how do they create a digital dollar that holds its value without violating those principles?
00:09:21.759 --> 00:09:27.039
Aaron Powell They replace the interest-bearing cash with tangible Sharia compliant real-world assets.
00:09:27.360 --> 00:09:27.600
Okay.
00:09:27.919 --> 00:09:31.600
The source details a massive move FACET made to facilitate this.
00:09:31.759 --> 00:09:37.039
It was a memorandum of understanding signed in the fourth quarter of 2025 with Ajman Bank.
00:09:37.360 --> 00:09:38.320
Oh, Ajman Bank.
00:09:38.720 --> 00:09:38.960
Yeah.
00:09:39.360 --> 00:09:45.120
Ajman Bank provides decades of institutional credibility and rigorous Sharia oversight.
00:09:45.200 --> 00:09:47.759
And Facet provides the digital infrastructure.
00:09:48.240 --> 00:09:51.919
So together they are launching Sharia compliant tokenized assets.
00:09:52.240 --> 00:09:52.559
Yes.
00:09:52.799 --> 00:09:59.039
Instead of offering a savings account that pays a standard interest yield, they offer an asset-backed savings product.
00:09:59.120 --> 00:10:06.159
Aaron Powell Meaning the user's stable coin represents a fractional share of a tangible, rigorously vetted physical asset.
00:10:06.240 --> 00:10:09.440
Aaron Powell or a Sharia compliant commercial venture, exactly.
00:10:09.679 --> 00:10:15.759
The user gains the stability and potential upside of that asset while completely avoiding the prohibited mechanism of interest.
00:10:16.159 --> 00:10:18.559
That partnership bridges the trust gap perfectly.
00:10:18.879 --> 00:10:19.519
It really does.
00:10:19.840 --> 00:10:29.759
You have the absolute cutting-edge ledger technology handling the speed and efficiency enveloped within the deeply trusted, highly governed institutional framework of Adjmond Bank.
00:10:30.080 --> 00:10:35.600
So the user feels the psychological safety of traditional banking, but experiences the operational speed of the blockchain.
00:10:35.919 --> 00:10:39.600
And Lobe One serves as the ultimate proving ground for this hybrid model.
00:10:39.759 --> 00:10:43.440
Facet isn't just using the Malaysian sandbox as a regulatory loophole.
00:10:43.679 --> 00:10:55.039
No, they are using it to prove to the rest of the world that highly regulated, stablecoin-based, global Islamic banking actually functions seamlessly under the strictest possible conditions.
00:10:55.440 --> 00:10:59.679
Let's bring this macro level regulatory discussion down to the everyday user, though.
00:10:59.919 --> 00:11:08.720
We've established Facet has an existing user base, brilliant invisible plumbing, and the strict oversight of Islamic finance in a Malaysian sandbox.
00:11:08.960 --> 00:11:09.200
Right.
00:11:09.519 --> 00:11:14.639
How does this ecosystem directly benefit the end consumer sitting in an emerging market?
00:11:14.960 --> 00:11:19.600
Well, Ghazali frames the consumer benefit around a very specific definition of inclusion.
00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:21.840
Financial inclusion is such a buzzword these days.
00:11:22.159 --> 00:11:29.519
It is, but Ghazali defines it as making financial services accessible and cost-effective without ever lowering security and governance standards.
00:11:29.919 --> 00:11:34.080
Because in emerging markets, the existing financial infrastructure is notoriously fragmented.
00:11:34.399 --> 00:11:34.720
Exactly.
00:11:34.879 --> 00:11:40.480
Moving money domestically might require one app, while sending remittances requires a different provider with exorbitant fees.
00:11:40.799 --> 00:11:44.559
And accessing dollar-denominated savings requires yet another institution.
00:11:44.639 --> 00:11:45.200
Aaron Powell Right.
00:11:45.360 --> 00:11:46.240
It's a headache.
00:11:46.480 --> 00:11:54.960
So Facet is building a consolidated platform designed around the reality of how people actually earn, spend, and preserve their wealth across borders.
00:11:55.360 --> 00:11:58.879
It functions entirely like a universal travel adapter for your money.
00:11:59.200 --> 00:12:00.159
Oh, I like that analogy.
00:12:00.559 --> 00:12:00.720
Yeah.
00:12:00.799 --> 00:12:06.799
I mean, anyone who travels internationally knows the headache of carrying five different plugs for different wall outlets.
00:12:07.120 --> 00:12:07.759
It's the worst.
00:12:08.159 --> 00:12:14.879
Current cross-border banking forces you to switch providers, pay exchange fees, and navigate different apps at every single stop.
00:12:15.200 --> 00:12:15.360
Right.
00:12:15.679 --> 00:12:18.240
But Facet is building the universal adapter.
00:12:18.399 --> 00:12:28.639
It's a single interface where a user can securely hold their value, access asset-backed savings, and instantly transact globally without ever leaving the ecosystem.
00:12:29.039 --> 00:12:38.320
The travel adapter analogy captures the user experience beautifully, but uh it slightly underplays the immense regulatory reality Facet faces as they expand.
00:12:38.639 --> 00:12:39.039
What do you mean?
00:12:39.360 --> 00:12:44.639
Well, a physical travel adapter assumes you can just plug the same piece of plastic into any wall anywhere in the world.
00:12:45.120 --> 00:12:52.240
In global banking, every jurisdiction operates on entirely different legal frameworks, capital requirements, and consumer protection laws.
00:12:52.639 --> 00:13:01.919
So as Facet scales this universal adapter to other jurisdictions, how do they avoid compromising the strict governance standards they set up in Malaysia?
00:13:02.080 --> 00:13:04.480
They face a staggering compliance challenge.
00:13:04.799 --> 00:13:11.519
If we connect this to the bigger picture, this is where Ghazali's core philosophy for Facet's five-year vision comes into play.
00:13:11.840 --> 00:13:12.000
Right.
00:13:12.080 --> 00:13:15.519
In the interview, she explicitly states that scale follows consistency.
00:13:15.840 --> 00:13:16.399
Exactly.
00:13:16.559 --> 00:13:20.399
She understands that you cannot brute force global expansion.
00:13:20.559 --> 00:13:27.120
Her five-year ambition is for Facet to operate as a fully integrated digital bank across multiple key global markets.
00:13:27.519 --> 00:13:34.000
But to achieve that without breaking the compliance structures they've built, they have to use the Labuan model as a replicable blueprint.
00:13:34.399 --> 00:13:34.960
Precisely.
00:13:35.120 --> 00:13:43.600
By meticulously proving the safety and utility of core banking combined with regulated digital assets in Malaysia, they generate a verifiable track record.
00:13:43.919 --> 00:13:49.200
And then they take that exact proven model and deliberately pursue licenses in new jurisdictions.
00:13:49.519 --> 00:13:54.480
Adapting to local frameworks while refusing to dilute their own internal governance standards.
00:13:54.639 --> 00:13:57.519
They build it perfectly once and scale the consistency.
00:13:57.840 --> 00:14:01.440
So what does this all mean for the broader landscape of how we handle our money?
00:14:01.679 --> 00:14:02.000
Whoa.
00:14:02.320 --> 00:14:13.440
Looking at Rafiza Ghazali's strategy, the defining takeaway is that the future of banking will not be defined by the loudest, most aggressive crypto apps shouting about digital disruption.
00:14:13.919 --> 00:14:16.480
No, the real revolution is incredibly quiet.
00:14:16.559 --> 00:14:22.639
Aaron Powell It is about taking brilliant, lightning-fast blockchain technology and burying it deep in the background.
00:14:23.039 --> 00:14:23.200
Right.
00:14:23.360 --> 00:14:30.159
It is about using strict traditional regulation like Sharia compliance to legitimize that technology.
00:14:30.240 --> 00:14:37.440
Aaron Powell And using it to solve the painfully boring but vital everyday friction of moving value safely across borders.
00:14:37.759 --> 00:14:45.279
For any of you listening, whether you are a supply chain manager paying vendors across three different continents or just someone trying to send money overseas to your family.
00:14:45.600 --> 00:14:52.080
This strategy of prioritizing quiet consistency over loud hype will dictate the financial tools you adopt in the coming decade.
00:14:52.399 --> 00:14:53.120
Absolutely.
00:14:53.360 --> 00:15:00.799
The most successful financial platforms will be the ones that make the friction of money movement completely disappear from your view.
00:15:01.279 --> 00:15:02.000
Disappear entirely.
00:15:02.240 --> 00:15:02.480
Yeah.
00:15:02.639 --> 00:15:05.519
And consider the implications of that kind of disappearance.
00:15:05.759 --> 00:15:06.080
Okay.
00:15:06.320 --> 00:15:23.279
If the most advanced, complex blockchain technologies, the exact systems generating endless headlines and debates today, are ultimately destined to become completely invisible to the end user, quietly operating behind the scenes of asset-backed, zero infinite accounts.
00:15:23.519 --> 00:15:23.679
Wow.
00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:33.279
What other loud, highly debated, disruptive technologies currently dominating our news cycles are simply waiting to vanish into the mundane background plumbing of our everyday lives?
00:15:33.600 --> 00:15:42.399
That is a staggering question to consider, especially when you look at how much energy we spend tracking the hype of new tech rather than waiting for it to actually become seamlessly useful.
00:15:42.639 --> 00:15:44.000
It really puts things in perspective.
00:15:44.320 --> 00:15:44.639
It does.
00:15:44.799 --> 00:15:51.519
Our goal today was to explore how the chaotic maze of international banking is being transformed into a seamless solid vault.
00:15:51.679 --> 00:15:58.399
And finding out that the secret is just hiding the cutting of tech behind ancient rules is exactly why we do these deep dives.
00:16:03.919 --> 00:16:05.440
Keep questioning the world around you.
00:16:05.600 --> 00:16:09.679
Keep looking for the invisible plumbing, making everything work, and we will catch you next time.
