Hesab and Movement Bet on Self-Custody to Bank the Unbanked

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – July 07, 2026 – For the 1.4 billion adults living outside the formal financial system, the promise of a bank account has long been a distant echo. Now, a new partnership aims to turn that echo into a tangible reality, not by extending the old system, but by building an entirely new one. Global payments platform Hesab has announced it will build its new Global Self-Custody Bank exclusively on Movement, a stablecoin settlement layer designed for emerging markets.

The ambition is staggering: to provide a full-stack financial platform that gives users in the Global South, from Africa to the Middle East, true ownership of their money. This isn't just another neobank app. It's a fundamental reimagining of what a bank can be when it's built on a foundation of self-custody, blockchain rails, and compliant stablecoins, aiming to bypass the inflation, currency controls, and institutional risks that plague millions.

Hesab is no newcomer to this challenge. The firm, founded in 2018 by former Merrill Lynch analyst Sanzar Kakar, already processes $160 million across a million transactions monthly in over 160 countries. This new venture, however, represents a quantum leap, moving from facilitating payments to architecting a user-owned financial ecosystem.

The Anatomy of a New Financial Stack

At the heart of this initiative is a carefully assembled technology stack, a consortium of specialized partners aiming to solve the core problems of cross-border finance. At the base is Movement, selected as the exclusive settlement layer. Built on Move, the programming language Meta originally designed for financial applications, Movement provides a high-throughput, secure foundation for moving value.

Its key differentiator, however, is what the press release calls a "regulated footprint." By securing licensed payment rails in the US, Canada, and the European Union, Movement can offer compliant on-ramps and off-ramps from fiat currency to stablecoins. This is the critical bridge that many decentralized networks lack, allowing real-world money to flow into the digital ecosystem and back out again without falling into regulatory gray areas.

"Money should move at the speed of trust. Instantly, without permission, across any border," said Sanzar Kakar, Chairman of Hesab, in the announcement. "We chose Movement as our exclusive stablecoin settlement layer because it gives us the speed, composability, and emerging-market focus to offer something the world has never had - a bank account that truly belongs to its user."

This architecture allows Hesab to sidestep the correspondent banking system, a notoriously slow and expensive chain of intermediaries that requires billions in pre-funded float to operate. Instead of taking days, settlements can achieve sub-second finality, drastically reducing both cost and capital overhead.

Building on this settlement layer is a suite of best-in-class partners. DFNS, a core banking platform for digital assets that has secured over €100 billion since 2020, provides the programmable wallet infrastructure. This enables Hesab to issue millions of non-custodial wallets where users genuinely hold their own private keys, but without the intimidating user experience of managing complex seed phrases. For liquidity, the platform integrates two of the industry's largest stablecoins: Circle's USDC, using its Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP) for seamless interoperability, and Tether's USDT, which provides deep liquidity in many of the target corridors. With stablecoins processing over $8.9 trillion in on-chain volume in the first half of 2025 alone, this plugs Hesab directly into a massive, existing pool of digital dollars.

A Leapfrog Moment for the Global South?

This technological firepower is aimed squarely at the financial realities of the Global South. For hundreds of millions, the primary challenges are not just a lack of access, but the unreliability of the systems they can access. High remittance fees, which still average over 6% globally, eat into the funds sent home by migrant workers. Volatile local currencies and sudden government controls can erode savings overnight. Hesab’s model of a self-custody bank offers a potential shield against these systemic risks.

The timing is potent. Mobile money adoption has already created a generation of digitally-native consumers across Africa and Asia. Sub-Saharan Africa alone accounts for 70% of the world's mobile money transactions. These users have already leapfrogged traditional brick-and-mortar banking, making them a fertile audience for a mobile-first, self-custodial solution.

"The unbanked aren't waiting for traditional banks to reach them," noted Torab Torabi, CEO of Movement. "They're already using mobile money and informal transfer systems. Hesab plugs directly into that demand with something better: their own bank, with no primitive middleman and global access."

By giving users direct control over their digital dollars in a non-custodial wallet, the platform offers a degree of financial sovereignty that is virtually unattainable through traditional channels. It transforms a user's smartphone from a simple communication device into a secure vault for global currency, accessible 24/7 and controlled by no one but its owner.

The Gauntlet of Adoption and Regulation

Despite the powerful vision and robust technology, the path to mass adoption is fraught with challenges. The primary hurdle is trust. In many target markets, cash remains king not just out of habit, but out of a deep-seated distrust of institutions. Hesab's own history provides a cautionary tale; an earlier venture in Afghanistan, HesabPay, found that while users embraced the platform for specific transactions like paying utility bills, they often cashed out their balances immediately. Convincing users to store their wealth in a digital wallet, even a self-custodial one, will require a massive educational effort and a flawless record of security and reliability.

Furthermore, the regulatory landscape is a complex and shifting maze. While Movement’s compliant rails in Western jurisdictions are a significant asset, deploying a global service means navigating a patchwork of national rules, some of which are openly hostile to digital assets. Gaining the trust of local regulators will be as crucial as gaining the trust of users.

The competitive environment is also fierce. Established mobile money operators like M-Pesa command immense loyalty, and state-backed real-time payment systems, such as India's UPI and Brazil's Pix, have achieved near-total market penetration. Hesab's Global Self-Custody Bank must carve out its niche by offering something these platforms cannot: true ownership and global interoperability. The success of this ambitious project will serve as a crucial test case for whether the decentralized ideals of Web3 can finally deliver on the long-held promise of banking the unbanked.