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How PesaLink can serve as the orchestration layer between banks, stablecoin issuers, and remittance operators — without building a new clearing system or disintermediating its own members.
Following our workshop, the next artifact owed to the PesaLink team is a set of customer journey diagrams that show how end users, banks, remittance operators, and stablecoin issuers would interact with the proposed infrastructure — without abstracting away the mechanics that matter for compliance, risk, and operations.
We have framed three journeys. Together they cover the bulk of the economic activity that the new rail is expected to carry in year one: inter-bank settlement, remittance inflow into domestic termination, and the custody relationship between banks and licensed stablecoin issuers (including KESC, the local KES-denominated stablecoin).
Each journey is presented as a sequence of actor interactions with the blockchain shown as a settlement surface and PesaLink as the orchestration layer. The existing CAPS / KEPPS rails remain in place and are unaffected — the stablecoin network runs in parallel.
Three sub-scenarios sit inside this flow, in order of complexity: treasury moves between bank master wallets, customer-to-customer transfers across banks, and external blockchain wallets sending inbound to a bank-issued customer wallet. CBK observability is continuous across all three via the analytics dashboard.
The scenario most worth pressure-testing first with stakeholders is 1B (customer-to-customer), since it is the one that touches the existing 999,999 KES transaction limit and the real-time webhook contract between banks.
Roughly 60% of the remittance operators connected to PesaLink today are already using stablecoins on the originating side and then converting at the border. This journey shows the model where they bypass correspondent banking entirely — funding a domestic float position at a Kenyan bank directly in stablecoins, then drawing on it for last-mile payouts over M-Pesa, or PesaLink directly.
Choice Bank has indicated this is the wedge they want to lead with. The commercial attraction is clear: no SWIFT delay, no correspondent credit risk, and 24/7 funding — all while the payout leg continues to use existing rails.
The upcoming VASP regime establishes a stablecoin issuer category with a 500M KES minimum capital requirement. Issuers will need banks to hold their fiat reserves on a segregated, ring-fenced basis. This journey describes how that relationship works operationally — mint, burn, proof-of-reserves — and how a single bank can custody for multiple competing issuers at once.
We flag KESC (a KES-denominated stablecoin) specifically because it is the instrument most relevant to PesaLink's members: settlement stays in local currency, there is no FX exposure, and CBK monetary visibility is preserved.
These journeys are the common reference point for the commercial and technical artifacts that follow. None of them require PesaLink to build a new clearing system or take on custody risk.