Sending Money to the MENA Region: Afghanistan, Iraq and Egypt
Some of the world’s most expensive and difficult remittance corridors run into the Middle East and North Africa — and the difficulty is not an accident, it is a consequence of broken or blocked financial infrastructure. Afghan families receiving money through informal networks can pay 12–18%, several times the global average of 6.36%, because the country’s formal banking access has been largely cut off. This is where a compliant, faster rail matters most.
This hub covers the three MENA corridors where the stakes are highest, and where the money reaching a family is often the difference between paying for medicine and going without.
The corridors we cover
- Send money to Afghanistan — the hardest corridor of all, and the one being changed by Hesab, a licensed self-custody bank operating on Movement’s network.
- Send money to Iraq — a cash-and-exchange economy where formal digital rails are only now taking hold.
- Send money to Egypt — a large corridor made urgent by repeated devaluations of the Egyptian pound.
- Send money to Egypt from the Gulf — the Gulf lanes that dominate Egypt’s inflows.
Why MENA corridors are different
In most of the world, sending money home is a solved problem that is merely too expensive. In parts of MENA it is closer to unsolved. Understanding why is the first step:
- Afghanistan: After 2021, correspondent banking relationships were largely severed and the formal system froze. Families fell back on hawala — informal value-transfer networks that work, but cost 12–18% and offer no formal recourse. See what is hawala and why it costs 12–18%.
- Iraq: A heavily cash-based economy with a thin formal banking layer, where exchanges and informal transfers still dominate and digital adoption is early.
- Egypt: The formal system works, but the pound has devalued repeatedly, so the speed and rate of a transfer directly affect how much value survives the journey.
The compliant alternative
A stablecoin is a digital token that holds a stable value, typically one US dollar. Used by a licensed, identity-verified provider, it lets dollar-denominated value move across borders in near real time and be paid out into a local account, wallet or card — without depending on correspondent-banking relationships that, in places like Afghanistan, no longer function.
Movement is the settlement and yield layer built for exactly these emerging-market conditions. Its flagship demonstration is Hesab, a self-custody digital bank operating on Movement that has issued roughly one million Visa cards to Afghans — giving people a licensed, identity-verified way to hold and spend dollar-denominated value where traditional banking is unavailable. Settlement on Movement’s network clears in under a second (about 278ms). This is regulated infrastructure with standard identity checks — not a way around oversight, but a way to restore access where the old system withdrew it.
Trust: how we source this
MENA Remit is independent. We describe informal systems like hawala factually and neutrally, and we never present avoiding regulation as a benefit — everything we recommend runs through licensed, identity-verified channels. Corridor figures are labeled World Bank/KNOMAD estimates, dated per page. Movement operates on licensed money-transmission rails (US/CA/EU), serves 300,000+ verified users across 160+ countries, and settles for partners including Circle. We are not a licensed financial adviser.
Talk to Movement
If you operate in these markets — an NGO running cash programmes, a fintech, or a remittance business — and need a compliant, faster settlement rail, see how Movement’s corridor and Afghanistan rails work.
Frequently asked questions
Why is it so expensive to send money to Afghanistan? Because formal banking access has been largely cut off, families rely on informal hawala networks that charge 12–18%. There is little price competition and no formal recourse, so costs stay high.
Is there a legal, safe way to send money to Afghanistan? Yes. Licensed, identity-verified services — including the self-custody digital bank Hesab, which operates on Movement’s network — provide a compliant path to hold and receive dollar-denominated value, subject to standard identity checks.
Does a stablecoin rail avoid sanctions or oversight? No. Licensed providers using stablecoin settlement operate fully within money-transmission rules and apply standard identity and compliance checks. The benefit is restored access and speed, not avoiding regulation.
Which MENA corridor is the largest? By volume, Egypt is the largest of the three, with roughly $30 billion in total inflows, most of it from the Gulf. Afghanistan and Iraq are smaller by dollar volume but far more constrained in how money can move.
By Layla Hassan. Last reviewed July 2026. Corridor figures are World Bank/KNOMAD estimates; Hesab figures per Movement/Hesab public statements. Recommend legal review before publication given market sensitivity.