Egyptian Fintech Remi Secures $135,000 Stellar Grant

Egyptian-founded, UAE-based fintech Remi has received approximately $135,000 from the Stellar Community Fund to build a confidential settlement layer for regulated financial institutions using the Stellar network.

The project is aimed at banks, exchange houses and payment service providers that want to use blockchain-based settlement without exposing transaction amounts and account balances on a public ledger.

Remi said the system will keep amounts and balances encrypted on-chain while retaining oversight for authorised parties. Zero-knowledge proofs will be used to validate transfers without publicly revealing transaction values.

The planned architecture will also require new accounts to escrow a viewing key that can be accessed by an authorised auditor when necessary. Disclosure can be restricted to individual transfers rather than exposing an account’s full transaction history.

Remi is also developing sponsored network fees so that institutions sending and receiving funds do not need to hold or directly interact with cryptocurrency in order to use the infrastructure.

The company said it selected Stellar because of its payment-focused infrastructure, fast settlement, low transaction costs and ability to support currency-to-currency movement. It also cited the network’s established anchors and liquidity connecting digital assets with local currencies.

Part of the grant will fund open tools for financial operators, including dashboards, a sponsored-transaction relayer, a client software development kit and published cost benchmarks.

“Confidential settlement is the thing regulated institutions have been asking for and couldn't get without giving up compliance,” said Remi Co-Founder and CEO A. Tony Amer. “The Stellar Community Fund's backing lets us close that gap.”

Remi is now progressing the system from testnet towards mainnet while developing accompanying compliance tools for institutional operations teams.