Saleem (سليم)

Hot off the press. Walid Abou Zaki - thank you for the article.

So its time to tell you what I've been up to (apart from Middle East Stablecoin Association - MESA. and Digital Money Association work). I've been in stablecoins for nearly five years. I've seen them mature and seen them transform financial services. They are truly a payment innovation and for years cross-border remittance has been called the product-market fit. That has nagged me for years. They are easy to send but hard to receive where people most need them. The people who needed this better money most had no means to access it. Many can't afford smartphones let alone the data, and many are unbanked: hundreds of millions of people across MENA and South Asia, all served by the worst rails: slow, expensive, and with no record of where the money went. How can we help them and the governments, aid agencies and corporates that want to pay them especially in countries rebuilding like Syria? So earlier this year, after a conversation during Ramadan, I started building a solution with Faris Sibai. It's called Saleem (سليم). I know how regulated digital money is issued, held and settled. Faris knows how a product is positioned and distributed in the markets where access is the problem. The rail needs both. Saleem is payment infrastructure for institutions. An aid agency, a ministry, an employer or a bank pays from its treasury; the money lands on the phone the recipient already has, a basic handset included, with or without a bank account. We have spent this year building rather than talking. The platform is built and demonstrable, pre-launch. We are developing our first corridors, the Levant and Pakistan from the Gulf, working through licensed and distribution partnerships, and beginning conversations around our first external funding round. We are part of the Stellar Development Foundation x CV Labs Accelerator, cohort 2026 and look forward to presenting at the Meridian conference in Lisbon next month. I'll be at the Jordan Fintech Festival this week so get in touch. If you have a programme, a payroll or a corridor that fits, let's talk. And if you want to follow what we build, the company will post its progress here on LinkedIn and on X: Saleem (سليم) ·X @saleempay · www.saleem.digital Thank you to all those people that have been supporting us on this journey. Those who took a call, opened a door, or suggested how we could improve. You're helping us build better, faster. Brenton Naicker Francesca J. C. Jordan Burgess Shaun Johnson Omar Hamwi, MBA, ex-World Bank Paul Wong

I’ve kept one part of my working life fairly quiet this year. Since January, alongside my role at Animotion Media Group, I’ve been building a fintech company with my co-founder, Ramy S.. It’s called Saleem . The idea started with a fairly simple question: What happens to digital finance when you stop assuming everyone has a bank account, a smartphone and reliable mobile data? For hundreds of millions of people, particularly across MENA and South Asia, those assumptions still exclude them from much of the financial system. Saleem is our answer. We’re building stablecoin payment infrastructure designed to extend digital financial access beyond the smartphone. One wallet across feature phones and smartphones, connecting individuals, merchants and institutions through the same infrastructure. Ramy brings deep experience across stablecoins, capital markets and regulated financial services. My role as Co-Founder & CMO sits around the other side of the equation: positioning, go-to-market, distribution, commercial partnerships and taking the proposition into markets where access remains a real problem. We’ve deliberately spent more time building than talking. The platform is now built and demo-ready. We’re developing our first market corridors, working through institutional and distribution partnerships, and beginning conversations around our first external funding round. So it feels like the right time to stop calling it the thing I’m working on quietly and start calling it by its name. Saleem (سليم) Safe. Sound. Delivered. There is much more to come. For now, the company, the thinking behind it and future updates will live on the Saleem (سليم) LinkedIn page. Follow Saleem here: Saleem (سليم) And to everyone who has challenged the idea, opened a door, made an introduction or told us where the thinking wasn't good enough: thank you. We’re only getting started.

So this is the debut LinkedIn post! Excited to be part of the Stellar Development Foundation and CV Labs Accelerator cohort. We’re building Stablecoin payment rail technology that reaches every phone so those that need assistance the most can have access. Thanks to both teams for supporting us on our journey. Let’s see what great things we can do together. #saleem #stablecoins #paymentinfrastructure