Daya is the African node in a new UAE to Africa payment corridor
Daya is the African payment partner in a regulated stablecoin corridor between the Middle East and Africa, with HashKey MENA and the Aptos Foundation.
In short
- HashKey MENA FZE, licensed by Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, has signed a Corridor Pilot Agreement with the Aptos Foundation to run a business-to-business payment corridor between the Middle East and Africa.
- Daya is the African payment partner, providing regulated on-ramps and off-ramps into African local currencies.
- The corridor extends HashKey's Asia Connect network, which already reaches Hong Kong, the Philippines, Vietnam and the UAE, into Africa for the first time.
Who does what
A corridor is only as useful as its two ends. Three parties, three jobs.
How a payment moves
A business in Dubai paying a supplier in Lagos does not want stablecoins. It wants the supplier to have naira in a bank account, and it wants to know what that cost.
- On-ramp in the Gulf. The paying business converts AED or USD into stablecoins through HashKey MENA.
- Settle across the corridor. The stablecoins move on the Aptos blockchain.
- Off-ramp in Africa. Daya converts stablecoins into local currency, or routes over SWIFT or bank wire where that is the better path.
- Land in a local account. The receiving business is paid in its own currency, into its own bank account.
Neither business at either end handles a stablecoin as anything other than a step in the middle.
Why build a corridor at all
What a stablecoin corridor removes is intermediary hops in the middle. What it does not remove is the requirement to be licensed at both ends. The regulated on-ramp and off-ramp are the hard part, and that is the part we operate in Africa.
Africa joins Asia Connect
This corridor extends HashKey's Asia Connect network into Africa for the first time. The network so far:
- Hong Kong to the Philippines, the first corridor, launched June 2025
- Vietnam, through collaborations with CAEX and VPBank
- The UAE, through HashKey MENA
- Africa, through Daya
For our customers, that last line is the point. An African business connected to Daya is connected to a network reaching four other markets, without needing a separate relationship in each of them.
"The demand in Africa has never been the constraint. The constraint has been having a licensed, liquid way in and out of local currency at the African end. That is what we operate, and that is why this corridor works in both directions."
Paul Joe, COO Daya
What's next
- The pilot. Multinational corporates funding local payments across borders, on-ramping at one node and off-ramping at the other.
- Full trade settlement. A business-to-business model with stablecoins as the primary settlement asset across supported corridors.
If you move money between the Gulf and African markets and want to know whether this applies to your flows, talk to us.
Paying into or out of African markets? Daya operates the payment infrastructure at the African end. One product, or one API. Talk to our team · Read the API documentation
