Afriex (Cross-Border Payments, Remittances)
Industry
Cross-Border Payments, Remittances
Focus
Stablecoins, B2B Payments, Treasury & Liquidity Management
Ifeanyi Awa
Head of Product
Key outcome Afriex gained using Utila
Unified Stablecoin Infrastructure for Cross-Border Treasury Operations and B2B Client Wallets
Afriex adopted Utila to consolidate its stablecoin operations - replacing a fragmented setup of exchange accounts and wallet providers with a single platform that now handles treasury movements, liquidity partner settlements, cross-chain swaps, and B2B client wallet provisioning across multiple assets and networks.
About Afriex
Cross-Border Payments Platform Connecting the African Diaspora and Global Businesses to 23 African Markets
Afriex is a cross-border payments company enabling money transfers from the US, Canada, UK, and Europe to 23 African countries. Founded in 2019 by Tope Alabi and John Obirije and backed by Y Combinator (S20) and Dragonfly Capital, Afriex started as a consumer remittance app serving the African diaspora - built from the founders' own experience navigating the difficulty of sending money home from the US.
Over five years of operations, Afriex expanded from 5 to 23 African payout countries and added support for multiple origination corridors across North America and Europe. As the company scaled its corridor coverage, it adopted stablecoins internally to manage treasury and liquidity movements between its network of payout processors and liquidity partners - each with different currency preferences, funding requirements, and network constraints.
In January 2025, Afriex launched a B2B web portal extending these capabilities to enterprise clients. Businesses anywhere in the world (outside sanctioned jurisdictions) can onboard, complete KYB, deposit stablecoins, and pay out to any of Afriex's 23 supported African corridors - using the same stablecoin-powered rails that Afriex built for its own treasury operations.
The challenge Afriex was facing
Fragmented Stablecoin Infrastructure Across Multiple Exchanges, Wallets, and Chains
Cross-border payments into Africa require managing a complex web of local processors, liquidity partners, and payout rails. Afriex collects fiat from senders in the US, Canada, UK, and EU, and must convert those funds into local African currencies through processor relationships that span 23 countries. These partners differ in which currencies they accept, which stablecoins they prefer, and which blockchain networks they operate on.
Afriex adopted stablecoins to solve the liquidity management challenge - moving funds between processors more efficiently than traditional FX rails allowed. But this created its own set of operational problems.
Multi-Platform Fragmentation
Before Utila, Afriex maintained accounts across multiple exchanges and wallet providers. Each served a different purpose, often because a particular payout partner had recommended a specific platform or only supported a particular chain. Treasury operations were spread across platforms with no unified view of assets or transaction history.
Asset and Chain Mismatch
A payout partner might accept USDT but only on Tron. Another might want USDC on Ethereum. A third settles on a different network entirely. Afriex needed to support whatever asset-chain combination a partner required, which meant maintaining presence across multiple networks and managing swaps between them - often through separate platforms.
Scaling the B2B Product
With the launch of its B2B portal, Afriex needed to provision individual wallets for every onboarding entity - potentially hundreds of business clients, each requiring their own deposit address with a choice of stablecoin and network. Managing that at scale through fragmented wallet infrastructure was not operationally viable.
Team Familiarity with Stablecoin Operations
Stablecoins and multi-chain operations were a relatively new territory for parts of the Afriex team. The company needed not just infrastructure, but a partner willing to provide hands-on support as the team built operational fluency.
The solution we delivered for Afriex
Consolidated Multi-Asset, Multi-Chain Stablecoin Operations in a Single Platform
After evaluating the market, Afriex selected Utila as its stablecoin infrastructure partner - consolidating all stablecoin operations into a single platform that replaced the fragmented setup of exchanges and wallet providers.
Multi-Asset, Multi-Chain Support from One Environment
The primary factor in Afriex's decision was Utila's ability to support multiple stablecoins across multiple blockchain networks within a single platform. Afriex could now accept and move USDC and USDT across chains - including Ethereum, Tron, and others - without maintaining separate accounts on different exchanges. When a partner requires a specific asset on a specific network, Afriex executes the swap and settlement from within Utila.
B2B Client Wallet Provisioning at Scale
Every business that onboards to Afriex's B2B portal is assigned dedicated wallets through Utila's Wallet-as-a-Service infrastructure. Clients select their preferred stablecoin and network, receive a wallet address, and deposit directly. Afriex manages all entity wallets - across hundreds of businesses - from the same Utila console used for its own treasury operations.
Treasury and Liquidity Management
All stablecoin movements between Afriex and its payout partners now flow through Utila. What previously required coordinating across multiple exchanges and wallet providers - receiving funds, swapping between assets and chains, and settling with processors - now happens within a single environment with consistent controls and visibility.
Hands-On Onboarding and Ongoing Support
Utila's team provided dedicated support through a shared Slack channel, walking Afriex through platform usage beyond the initial onboarding. The sales team also offered a commercial ramp-up period of two to three months before standard pricing applied - recognizing that Afriex was piloting a new product feature and needed time to build volume.
High impact results Afriex experienced
A Competitive Infrastructure Advantage
The consolidation onto Utila gave Afriex a single operational layer for all stablecoin activity - treasury movements, B2B client wallets, and partner settlements - replacing what had been a patchwork of platforms with no unified controls.
The platform also proved extensible beyond Afriex's initial requirements. When a third-party provider recently approached Afriex about integrating sweep functionality for consolidating funds across entity wallets, that provider was already in conversations with Utila about building the integration directly into the platform - reinforcing the value of consolidating on infrastructure where the broader ecosystem is actively building.
Afriex noted that when evaluating alternative providers, mentioning Utila as their existing infrastructure consistently shifted the conversation - other providers recognized they were competing against a platform they could not easily match on multi-chain, multi-asset capabilities.
Before Utila, we had to maintain accounts across multiple exchanges to manage assets and liquidity. Now, those workflows are consolidated within a single platform. If we need to move USDT from one network to another, we can execute the required swap through Utila and continue trading without relying on separate exchange accounts for each step.
— Ifeanyi Awa, Head of Product, Afriex
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