Syria’s banking rebuild creates opening for fintechs filling the gaps

Syria’s financial reopening is attracting a first wave of fintech firms looking to establish positions while the country’s banking sector rebuilds after years of war and sanctions. They’ree betting that demand for cross-border payments, digital wallets, and foreign currency accounts is growing faster than banks (and the reforms policymakers need to enact) can react.

Their niche is in the gaps the formal banking system hasn’t yet addressed. With most US sanctions lifted in 2025 now easing and an internationally backed government in place, fintech companies entering Syria are positioning themselves around the country’s most immediate financial constraints: Making it easier to send remittances home, reconnecting users to international payment networks, and digitizing an overwhelmingly cash-dominated economy.

The sector’s growth trajectory is being driven by necessity. Rebuilding Syria’s banking system, hollowed out by years of sanctions, war and isolation, will take years. US-based Oliver Wyman, which is running a World Bank-backed review of the financial sector has recommended a path forward for banks that will take time: Turn the nation’s six public banks into state-owned joint-stock companies that could be fully privatized or that could grow through strategic partnerships with regional or international financial institutions.

Syria’s banking plumbing is up and running again: The Central Bank of Syria is no longer under European Union, British, or American sanctions and US regulators have authorized correspondent banking with the Commercial Bank of Syria. The country’s central bank has taken steps toward reintegration with global finance, including reconnecting parts of the banking system to SWIFT, Visa, and Mastercard.

But the structural constraints are legion. The reality on the ground is that businesses and individual savers alike have limited access to functional bank branches, weak connectivity to international payment systems, and face withdrawal restrictions. “Users suffer great difficulties when going to banks. For example, let’s assume I deposit SYP 20 mn in the bank now, which is equivalent to roughly USD 2k. If I want to withdraw it after a month or two, the bank will not be able to give me the full amount,” fintech consultant Adel Sada tells EnterpriseAM.

Early movers get the worm

“Syria has the potential to become a strong hub for neobanks and digital financial services,” neobank and web3 advisor Mohamad Soud tells us. “Traditional banks will likely act as the infrastructure layer, providing liquidity, compliance, and settlement, while fintech companies build the customer-facing products and experiences.” Soud advises international fintech firms on entering Syria.

Who’s already in the door: UK-based fintech Nsave, founded by Syrian entrepreneur Amer Baroudi and backed by Sequoia Capital and Y Combinator, expanded into Syria last month. The platform offers Syrians access to financial products largely inaccessible through the domestic banking system, including in some cases USD accounts and international transfers. Crypto exchange Binance has also been offering full services to users in Syria for over a year, following the easing of sanctions and growing demand for crypto-based remittance channels.

More are knocking: Soud says he has received inquiries from seven neobanks mulling entry into Syria and is working with New York-based Hawala, a cross-border remittance platform, on its market entry strategy.

The government is also building consumer rails: A little over a year ago, the Finance Ministry instructed all government entities to pay salaries through ShamCash, the electronic wallet first launched in Idlib during the war under opposition control. It was later adopted nationwide by the new Syrian government in a bid to digitize public-sector payments.

For many Syrians, it marked their first sustained exposure to digital wallets. “ShamCash paved the way for some fintech services because it introduced people to the culture of e-payments and digital wallets,” Sada tells EnterpriseAM. The Syrian Sovereign Fund has also since introduced Paymera, a national electronic payments platform connecting banks, payment providers, and merchants.

The rollout hasn’t been without problems: ShamCash has faced regular outages during the usual salary disbursal window, and some have raised concerns about its digital security, data protection, and transparency. Some reports suggested that the app operates through channels with little to no regulatory oversight, and that both its ownership and the identities of the developers behind the app remain ambiguous.

The crypto edge

Crypto is filling the gap for users constrained by limited international bank access. Syrian-founded fintech Bitknz, founded by Shady Zitoun, runs a cross-border payments platform using BTC and stablecoins, allowing users to receive funds from abroad, hold balances digitally, and cash out through local partners, primarily money exchange shops. Separately, Zitoun also launched BitLira, a SYP-based digital wallet developed in partnership with local platform E-Lira, which allows merchants to accept payments via QR codes and domestic digital settlement on blockchain. The two products target different segments of Syria’s emerging payments ecosystem — cross-border remittances on one end, and domestic transactions on the other.

Zitoun is operating in a regulatory vacuum: Syria has no specific legislative frameworks that either authorize or ban crypto, and the central bank has yet to issue any guidance on stablecoins, leaving the rails on which Bitknz and similar services operate in a gray area even as usage grows. That’s in addition to heightened AML scrutiny on cross-border crypto flows into a jurisdiction only recently removed from terrorism-related designation.

The easing of sanctions has made it possible to register products in the US, Zitoun says, ensuring his offerings are transparent to regulators. He registered Bitknz in the US a year ago, he says. “We are compliant with sanctions screening, AML checks, KYC. We work with providers offering KYC services using AI to facilitate the onboarding process for our users and ensure that security is at a high level within the Bitknz platform,” Zitoun tells us. Since launch, Bitknz has amassed more than 18k active users, largely Syrians sending remittances home.

The adoption ceiling: Converting Syria’s cash-reliant economy into a digital payments ecosystem requires more than product availability, industry insiders tell us. “People still need a lot of education on electronic payments, to promote adoption inside Syria, to educate the user on how to use and benefit from the product. That requires a team on the ground,” Zitoun says. Soud agrees: For a while, he says, demand for digital payment platforms will stay concentrated among Syrians abroad and young, tech-savvy Syrians inside the country. “Inside Syria, adoption is growing gradually, but cash remains the preferred method for most consumers and merchants.”