Borderless Banking in MENA

In this edition of Founder’s Hustle, we spotlight Maher Ayari, whose nomadic journey uncovered a critical gap in global finance, inspiring him to launch Sorbet, a startup bringing borderless banking to remote workers and SMBs starting in Saudi Arabia and across the broader MENA region.     

A Digital Nomad, a Reconnection, and an Idea

The Sorbet story begins with an old friendship. Maher Ayari and his co-founder, Rami, first crossed paths as university students in Montreal — Maher studying finance at McGill, Rami diving into computer science at Concordia. Both were drawn to startups and tech, but after graduation, life led them down separate paths.

Maher entered the world of venture capital at Real Ventures, joined Techstars, and later helped scale Breathe Life, a Montreal-based fintech, until acquisition. Meanwhile, Rami joined Deloitte’s AI team, honing his skills in machine learning and systems architecture.

Years passed. Then, in the summer of 2023, both quit their jobs independently, yet driven by the same conviction: that Web3 held untapped potential to solve real-world problems. Maher was living as a digital nomad in South America; Rami was freelancing as a blockchain developer in Southeast Asia.

Despite being on opposite sides of the globe, they were witnessing the same trend: a rising generation of talent in emerging markets were getting paid in stablecoins like USDT and USDC, not out of preference, but out of necessity. Traditional platforms like PayPal were plagued by high fees, account restrictions, and constant friction. Stablecoins became the workaround, but only for the tech-savvy who could navigate wallets, gas fees, and on-chain transactions.

One afternoon in a café, Maher wrote a short article reflecting on this growing phenomenon. Rami came across it on LinkedIn. The message was simple: “Let’s build something better.”

Modernizing Cross-Border Payments

The original idea was broader. Rami had been working on Thriven — a “LinkedIn on-chain” marketplace for freelancers. But the more he and Maher spoke, the more they realized the real bottleneck for freelancers was payments.

In late 2023, Rami joined the first Antler cohort in Riyadh to explore the idea further. Just a few weeks in, he reached out to Maher with a pivot: instead of building a broad freelancer marketplace, why not double down on the most pressing pain point — one they had both faced as digital nomads and that was already gaining traction in LATAM and Southeast Asia — getting paid? 

Maher flew in to join Rami and build a stablecoin-powered remittance and payment layer for MENA — a region where the market was still wide open. It felt like the last frontier, with no clear leader bridging crypto and real-world financial access. Sorbet set out to change that.

By December 2023, they wrapped up the Antler program together, secured pre-seed funding from Antler, and officially started building Sorbet. 

The Problem

In a world where a message can travel across the globe in a second, free of charge, sending money still feels stuck in the past. Cross-border payments are slow, expensive, and riddled with friction. Behind every international transfer lies a patchwork of fragmented infrastructure: ACH, SEPA, SWIFT — systems bound by borders, banking hours, and layers of middlemen, each taking a cut.

A Platform Built on Simplicity

Sorbet’s thesis was simple: you shouldn’t need to understand crypto to benefit from it. From day one, the goal was to make stablecoin payments feel seamless — no wallets, no gas fees, no jargon. Behind the scenes, Sorbet uses stablecoin infrastructure to move money across borders quickly and affordably. But for users, it’s invisible — a clean, intuitive platform built to make cross-border payments fast, accessible, and friction-free.

1. Sign Up – Users register easily with an email. Behind the scenes, Sorbet automatically generates a non-custodial wallet linked to their account, though most users never have to think about it. This wallet allows them to receive USDC stablecoins seamlessly on Base without dealing with any crypto complexity. Users must also complete KYC to start receiving USD/EUR.

2. Get Paid – Individuals and SMBs can invoice clients in USD/EUR. Clients don’t need a Sorbet account—simply receive an email with the invoice and choose to pay via stablecoins (USDC on Base) or traditional methods like ACH or wire transfer. Soon, payments via credit cards, GBP, and other fiat currencies will be supported. Once paid, the funds hit a virtual account instantly and are made available to the user.

3. Convert & Transfer – The USD payment is immediately converted to USDC and credited to the user’s balance, which is always stored in stablecoins for instant, global transfers. Users can then spend their balance with upcoming Sorbet payment cards or soon withdraw funds directly to local bank accounts in over 150 countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt (via partnerships through Walapay). Eventually, the goal is to vertically integrate with these off-ramp infrastructure providers. 

Ultimately, using Sorbet, workers and SMBs can collect global payments in a couple of minutes without losing money to fees.

Stablecoin Payments Are Only the Tip of the Iceberg

“Stablecoins like USDC are transforming payments — but that’s just the beginning,” says Maher. “The real shift will come from what’s built on top.” As USDC becomes table stakes, the advantage moves to stablecoin-native services: automated payroll, yield-generating accounts, and borderless banking—all programmable and trustless. Sorbet sees stablecoins not as the endgame, but as the infrastructure to a new financial operating system designed for workers and businesses.

Why Now? Why the Middle East?

Blockchain-powered cross-border payments have long been hyped, but Maher believes now is different. “The infrastructure is ready,” he says. “You’ve got players like Circle (issuer of USDC) building the network, and regulations maturing. Before, it still felt like the Wild West.”

With stablecoin volumes now rivaling — and at times surpassing — Visa and PayPal, real-world usage is catching up to the promise. And with Saudi Arabia pushing fintech innovation and over 1.3 million SMBs (most of them micro-businesses), the region is primed.

“You don’t need to know what USDC is,” Maher explains. “What matters is that your money arrives quickly and affordably — without the usual friction.” He adds, “The infrastructure is finally in place. Now it’s time for products like Sorbet to scale and capture the market.”

A Strong Start

After a year of development, the team opened a closed beta in March 2025. With limited off-ramping, they still managed to onboard 1,000+ freelancers across Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, and the UAE, and processed over $200K in volume in the first 8 weeks. Now, they're focused on onboarding businesses and launching full off-ramping capabilities. Their go-to-market strategy? A two-pronged approach:

• Local distribution: Partner with accelerators, government programs, and ecosystem enablers to become the default fintech stack for new businesses entering Saudi Arabia. 

• Global integration: Build the platform to integrate with complementary platforms such as accounting software and leverage cross-selling.

The Remaining Infrastructure Hurdles

While the stablecoin rails are finally ready, building on top of them isn’t plug-and-play. Sorbet still faces key infrastructure decisions such as choosing the right partners to power its cross-border ambitions. “There are a bunch of tools that do the same thing,” Maher says. “But which one are you going to bet on?”

The challenge is twofold: picking integration partners that align with Sorbet’s vision, while managing margin compression and dependency. “We call it the stablecoin sandwich,” Maher explains. “To move fast, we have to plug into multiple integration partners — but every layer we add eats into our margin and makes us more dependent on third parties.”

As a pre-seed startup, Sorbet is taking a phased approach: stay compliant from day one, rely on key partners to go to market, and gradually bring core infrastructure in-house as they scale.

The Vision — and What’s Keeping The Team Up at Night

Inspired by Brex and Mercury, Sorbet aims to build “on-chain banking” tailored for the Middle East, not just digitizing traditional finance, but reimagining it by leveraging blockchain infrastructure to unlock new value for businesses. This includes features like automated yield generation, real-time settlement, and embedded financial flows — all secured and executed transparently on-chain. 

The long-term play? Becoming the default fintech layer for global-facing SMBs in Saudi and the rest of the MENA: from receiving international payments to paying contractors, to remittances across Egypt, Pakistan, and beyond.

But the pace of innovation is relentless — and unpredictable. “You can’t build in a silo,” Maher says. “Sometimes news from a big player can completely reshape your roadmap.” For Sorbet, staying agile, plugged into industry shifts, and ready to pivot is both the challenge and advantage of being early.

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