Arrel takes its virtual-asset control layer to Kenyan banks in Nairobi

Sybrin hosted Payments in Motion: Kenya 2026 at the Nairobi Serena Hotel, a closed-door business event for Kenyan financial institutions on moving payments "from physical to digital, from local to connected". According to the host, about 50 attendees from 25 banks took part. Arrel was one of five companies that each gave a 20-minute presentation.

Nicholas Allen, CEO and co-founder of Arrel, presented "Building Bankable Virtual-Asset Infrastructure: from custody to stablecoin settlement to compliance", using the term in Kenya's VASP Act, signed in October 2025. He set out why banks need virtual-asset connections: stablecoins can carry the cross-border transfer leg, many clients already hold virtual assets outside the bank, and treasury value can move after hours when the usual rails are closed.

A bank needs five kinds of provider: liquidity venues, custody and wallets, on- and off-ramps, compliance, and chains and tokens. Each has its own interfaces, fees, reports and controls. Allen showed how DAPL gives the bank one API to all of them, with shared approvals, routing and reporting, while the bank keeps its policies and custody choices. He then demonstrated SureClear, a business payments and treasury application built on DAPL, in a demo environment: approval rules, multi-currency balances and a quote, approve and settle currency conversion.

His advice was to take one use case through legal and risk review, pilot one workflow and produce transaction and reconciliation evidence for review. "One use case first. The same control layer scales to the rest." Nairobi was the second stop of Arrel's October roadshow, after Accra.