Questions about the firm, release and onboarding

An escrow arrangement is one in which a regulated third party holds funds for a transaction and releases them on the mechanism the parties have documented, rather than on either party's say-so.

The 2007 Dubai escrow law addressed the developer accounts required for off-plan property. The application is wider. The same structure carries purchase consideration, holdbacks, earn-outs, completion adjustments, settlement sums and multi-party distributions.

Titanium holds those funds under a Financial Services Permission from the FSRA of ADGM for Providing Custody and Providing Money Services.

Send the structure, the parties and their jurisdictions, the number of payees, the timetable and the proposed release mechanics. Titanium confirms whether it can act.

The agreement is then settled with transaction counsel, each party who will send or receive money completes onboarding, and funds are received into the designated client account arrangement. An initial conversation does not need documents.

Titanium Escrow is the trading name of Titanium Financial Ltd, an Abu Dhabi firm that provides escrow, custody and paying agency services. It holds funds for transactions that need an independent party to hold them, and releases those funds on the mechanism the parties have documented.

Titanium Financial Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Abu Dhabi Global Market for Providing Custody and Providing Money Services. The permission was granted on 26 November 2020.

The authorisation can be verified on the ADGM public register. Note that the FSRA grants a Financial Services Permission. There is no separate escrow permission in the regime, and authorisation is not endorsement.

Start with the register rather than the website. Check the exact legal entity, not the trading name, and check which activities it is permitted to carry on. Titanium Financial Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Abu Dhabi Global Market for Providing Custody and Providing Money Services, and the entry can be read on the ADGM public register.

Then ask where the money sits, and whether it is separated from the firm's own. Client funds are held separately from Titanium's operating funds under the applicable client money arrangements. Emirates NBD is a banking partner for client accounts.

Then ask what makes the money move. The release mechanism should be written down before anything is funded, and it should not rest on the agent's opinion. Funds are released in accordance with the agreement and valid authorised instructions, or against documentary evidence specified in the agreement, subject to applicable law and regulatory requirements. Titanium does not decide whether the underlying obligations have been met.

Then read what is recorded about responsibilities and cost: who may give an instruction, what notice is required, what evidence is needed, what the fees are and when they fall due. Ask how a complaint about the agent's own conduct is dealt with, and where that is written down. These are settled before funding rather than after.

Authorisation is one of those checks and not a substitute for the others. It records that a regulator has permitted the firm to carry on the activity and supervises it on that basis. It is not an endorsement, and it says nothing about how a particular transaction will turn out.

The entity facts, the permission and the register link are set out on Verified facts, and the governance position on Regulatory and governance.

Escrow, paying agency and custody. In practice that means holding transaction funds, administering payments to multiple recipients, and holding assets or proceeds under a custody arrangement, in each case on documented instructions.

M&A and corporate transactions, private capital structures, restructuring and settlement arrangements, and UAE real estate purchases including arranging manager's cheques for non-resident buyers. If a proposed mandate falls outside what Titanium can accept, we say so at the first conversation rather than at onboarding.

A buyer living outside the UAE usually cannot obtain a manager's cheque directly, because only a UAE bank issues one and only to its own account holder. That is the practical obstacle this route addresses, and the buyer does not need a UAE bank account to use it.

The buyer sends the purchase funds from their own account abroad, in AED or another major currency, and completes onboarding: identification, proof of address, and evidence of where the money came from. On the buyer's written instruction, Titanium arranges the manager's cheques the transfer requires, in favour of the payees the instruction names, for delivery to the transfer appointment through the conveyancer or agent.

Titanium acts on that instruction as written. It does not calculate what is owed, decide who is entitled to it, or judge whether the sale agreement has been performed.

The steps, the documents and the dependencies that move the timetable are set out on UAE real estate, and the instrument itself on the manager's cheque guide.

Escrow governs when money may leave the account. The agreement sets the trigger and Titanium acts on it.

Paying agency governs how it leaves. Each beneficiary is identified and onboarded, screened, and their account details validated before payment is executed. Most corporate mandates use both, and on a multiple recipient distribution it is the paying agency work that sets the timetable.

Client funds are held separately from Titanium's operating funds under the applicable client money arrangements. Emirates NBD is a banking partner for client accounts. The specific account arrangement is confirmed during onboarding.

Customer due diligence, beneficial ownership identification, sanctions and adverse media screening, and source-of-funds verification appropriate to the party and the mandate. Enhanced due diligence is applied on a risk-assessed basis. Onboarding applies to every party who will receive money, not only to the party sending it.

Timing depends on the parties, jurisdictions, ownership structures, source of funds and the completeness of what is submitted. Titanium confirms an indicative timetable after its initial review. On multi-payee transactions, onboarding for each payee usually takes the longest.

Major currencies including AED, USD, GBP, EUR and SAR. Cash and cryptocurrency are not accepted. Parties and assets are frequently outside the UAE, and onboarding requirements vary accordingly. Whether a particular jurisdiction can be supported is confirmed at the initial review rather than assumed.

Fees are quoted for the specific mandate after initial review, and are recorded in the agreement. Titanium does not publish a fee schedule, because a published rate invites a quote that does not reflect the transaction.