How Keyrails helps airlines in Africa and ME with trapped funds

View profile for Esra Hibbert

Director, Office of the CEO @Keyrails | Entrepreneur

✈️ When airlines earn in local currency but spend in USD… #Africa & the Middle East now hold 85% of the world’s blocked airline funds, around US$1.1 billion, according to #IATA's April 2025 report. Governments in just 10 countries account for over US$1.03 billion of that trapped liquidity. Raises the question: what happens when #airlines can’t access the cash they’ve already earned?  Africa’s #aviation sector is growing rapidly: demand is up 9%, and passenger load factors are near 75%. Yet financial rails haven’t caught up.  Introducing Keyrails | Stable OS, built as the #CFO stack for frontier economies where treasury teams earn in local #currency and spend globally without friction. Here’s how we unbundle banking privilege for carriers: 💸 No more #trapped funds: Tokenized currency rails so your local currencies, such as NGN, EGP, KES, GHS, and ZAR, flow convert to USD within 24 h and appear in your named USD account. 📉 No #FX guesswork: Lock the rate at conversion with no volatility bleed on invoices. 🌐 Clean payouts: Pay #suppliers and lessors via POBO SWIFT—MT103 shows your name even if banks don’t. 🚀 Capital working for you: Idle USD enters a regulated #yield vault (4–5.3 % APY). 🛡️ Built to audit: Institutional-grade security, compliantly. We’re already powering flows for aviation and enterprise players moving >$600k average tickets daily. This isn’t just a rails play. It’s a chance to turn blocked capital into a runway for growth across Africa’s airlines. Ready to talk #treasury strategy above the banking gate? Drop me a DM.

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Thomas 🦄 Pinter

Seed Investor | Driving Growth in Global Payments | Expert in Cross-Border & Real-Time Payment Solutions | CCO Leadership

2mo

Esra, you hit the nail on the head with the blocked funds issue. The aviation sector's growth is indeed being hindered by these financial constraints. How do you see your solution impacting long-term liquidity for airlines in emerging markets?

very interesting! great that u r doing this !

Ariel Eiberman

Stablecoin Guy | Onchain Banking | Researching Payments, Stablecards & Wallet UX | Crypto GTM & B2B Growth | Real Usage of web3 from LATAM

2mo

Woow, that is a huge pain I can imagine. A great unlock for airlines! Would love to have your story Esra Hibbert in an upcoming article about onchain banking solutions that have current impact on businesses.

Berhan Kongel

Co-Founder & CEO Keyrails

2mo

Up and to the right 🚀

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