Nomura's Laser Digital advises Saudi small-business credit vault targeting $100 million, The Block reports

ZIG Finance has launched an on-chain investment vehicle for loans to small and medium-sized businesses in Saudi Arabia, with Nomura's digital asset subsidiary Laser Digital advising on its risk framework, The Block reported on November 11, citing a statement shared with the outlet. The product, called the zEMS Vault, runs on BNB Chain and targets a $100 million raise.

How the Saudi credit vault works

A vault in this sense is a pooled investment product run by smart contracts: investors deposit funds and receive tokens representing their share. In this case the pool is exposed to what the statement calls a diversified set of loans to Saudi small and medium-sized enterprises, according to The Block.

The vault is open to eligible institutional investors, who subscribe and redeem in stablecoins, according to the report. The loans are originated through the lending platform Beehive, KAIO handles tokenization and administration, and Zamanat structures the investment and advises on Sharia compliance, The Block reported.

Identity checks apply when investors enter and when they redeem, the report said. Laser Digital's role is to help design the vault's risk governance and to advise on tokenization, ZIG Finance said, according to The Block.

"The aim isn't to remove credit risk. It's to make that risk transparent and manageable," ZIG Finance co-founder Abdul Rafay Gadit said, as quoted by The Block.

The companies plan to apply the same structure to other emerging markets and credit strategies, according to the report. ZIG Finance's own post on X confirms the launch, Laser Digital's role as risk framework advisor and the use of BNB Chain, but does not mention the $100 million target. We have not seen the statement itself or the vault's offering documents, and the report does not give the expected yield, the loan terms or the default history of the loan pool.

Why it matters

The product ties Nomura's digital asset arm to small-business lending in Saudi Arabia. Other financial firms have reported digital asset moves in November: Deutsche Bank's custody service has gone live, according to Reuters, and the tokenization firm Securitize reported a 39% rise in average tokenized assets for the third quarter.

Laser Digital received conditional approval from the US Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in May 2026 to set up a national trust bank, The Block noted.

What it could mean for investors

The report describes the vault as open to eligible institutional investors and does not mention retail access. In our assessment, putting loans on a blockchain changes how they are recorded and distributed, not whether borrowers repay: investors in such a vault still carry the credit risk of the underlying small businesses, plus the risks of the stablecoins and smart contracts used. Redemption terms decide how quickly money can actually be withdrawn, and the report does not describe them.