A new startup called Stabyl just raised $2.7 million to fix a frustrating problem for African banks and payment companies: getting foreign exchange quickly and at fair prices.
If you’ve ever sent money abroad or imported goods into Ghana, someone in a bank or payment company had to juggle multiple phone calls and negotiations to get the right exchange rate. Stabyl wants to replace those messy negotiations with an automated system. But here’s the catch: this startup is not a consumer app. It’s infrastructure for businesses.
What Stabyl actually does
Think of Stabyl as a marketplace for foreign exchange, but only for banks and payment companies, not regular people.
Today, when a large company like Konga needs US dollars, its treasury team calls multiple banks and payment providers to compare rates. By the time they get answers, market prices shift. Everyone loses time and money.
Stabyl’s solution: a central platform where banks and payment companies can instantly post and match foreign exchange orders, like a stock exchange for currencies. “That entire process of making calls, figuring out rates, and manual labour is completely removed,” said Michael Anyi, Stabyl’s co-founder.
The platform lets institutions deposit Nigerian naira through KongaPay (a payment service), place orders at their preferred rate, and settle instantly. They can withdraw in either naira or stablecoins like USDT (Tether) and USDC (USD Coin). For businesses that want to plug Stabyl directly into their systems, Stabyl offers APIs (software tools) that tap into its liquidity pool automatically.
Why this matters (and why it doesn’t, yet)
For Ghana, the impact is indirect but real. If Stabyl makes forex cheaper and faster for Nigerian payment companies and banks, those businesses can offer better rates to Ghanaian traders, importers, and people sending money home. Payment companies that use Stabyl could pass on savings.
But Stabyl is currently focused on Nigerian naira and US dollars only. It has no Ghana presence announced yet. The company earns money by taking a small percentage of each transaction, not by betting on exchange rates like traditional forex dealers.
The bigger picture
Stabyl’s backers (led by Konga itself) believe stablecoins and blockchain settlement can speed up African finance. The startup is betting it can build trusted infrastructure now instead of rushing later.
Other African fintech companies like Onafriq and Yellow Card are also building payment systems. Stabyl says it’s not competing with them. Instead, it wants to become the plumbing that these companies use. “We’re not trying to gain market share,” co-founder Zachary Schwartzman said. “We’re creating more of the pie for everyone.”
What to watch
Keep an eye on whether Stabyl expands to Ghana and other currencies beyond NGN/USD. If it does, and if major Ghanaian payment companies integrate with it, you might see faster and cheaper forex services in apps like MTN MoMo, mPesa, or remittance platforms. For now, it’s a B2B (business-to-business) play that works behind the scenes.
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