Hancom WITH Establishes Gold RWA Joint Venture in Dubai to Target the Middle East’s Digital Finance Market

[Financial News] Hancom WITH, the de facto holding company of Hancom Group, is launching its global gold real-world asset tokenization (Gold RWA) business in earnest in Dubai, the “hub of global gold trading.”
Hancom WITH announced on the 3rd that it had signed an agreement to establish a joint venture in Dubai with Al Dhafra Al Gharbia Gold Trading (ADGT), a UAE-based gold trading company, and Cast Holdings, a global business development company, and held a signing ceremony. The agreement follows a three-party memorandum of understanding signed in July. Over approximately two months, the three companies completed local legal and regulatory reviews and designed the business structure. The joint venture will be established in Dubai with total capital of $800,000. Hancom WITH and ADGT will each hold a 40% stake, while Cast Holdings will hold 20%.
ADGT will handle the sourcing, refining, and storage of physical gold based on gold-mining projects in Tanzania and its local distribution network in the UAE. Hancom WITH will build and operate the issuance and redemption system that converts the secured physical gold into on-chain assets. Cast Holdings will support cooperation with local institutions and companies and the establishment of an operating system, drawing on its business development capabilities linking Korea, China, and the UAE.
The structure places a single entity in charge of the entire process, from sourcing and storage to reserve verification and token issuance and redemption. Unlike existing models in which physical gold suppliers and token issuers are separate, the joint venture will operate the supply chain and issuance system within one organization to ensure connectivity between physical gold and on-chain assets.
The Al Mazrouei family, which leads ADGT, is a prominent UAE family that has produced senior public officials, including energy ministers, and has formed marital ties with the royal family. The joint venture plans to accelerate efforts to secure a local physical-gold supply chain by leveraging the network the Al Mazrouei family has built in the UAE’s gold distribution sector.
The three companies agreed to design a regulatory compliance framework together from the early stages of the business. They will proceed with measures to meet the licensing requirements of Dubai’s Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (VARA), while incorporating anti-money-laundering (AML), know-your-customer (KYC), and Shariah compliance—the key requirement in Middle Eastern finance—into the business structure. The match between physical gold holdings and issued tokens will be regularly disclosed through third-party verification.
With the establishment of the joint venture, Hancom WITH has secured a stable source of physical gold for its existing gold-token business. The three companies will focus on completing a structure for issuing OXAU using physical gold secured through ADGT’s supply chain. They also plan to expand into areas such as bringing mining finance contracts based on future gold production on-chain.
Song Sang-yeop, CEO of Hancom WITH, said, "If the agreement signed in July was the stage at which we set the direction, establishing this joint venture completes the organization and system needed to execute the business in practice. Based on stable technology and a business structure that connects real-world assets with blockchain, we will strengthen our position in the Middle East and expand the business into global markets."

[email protected] Yeon Ji-an Reporter