When Banking Doesn't Reach You, You Build Your Own

"Candide gave us what no bank could: accounts that work across every market we operate in, without someone else holding the keys or controlling access. Candide's infrastructure meant we didn't have to choose between self-custody and a smooth user experience."

Abiola Shogbeni Founder, Managing Director & CEO

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At a Glance

How Shiga is replacing banking rails across Africa, and why the wallet layer had to be frictionless to make it work.

Product: Shiga, stablecoin and bitcoin banking focued on treasury management for Africa and global markets
Smart Account: Safe Accounts
Infrastructure: Candide Bundler and Paymaster
SDK: Tether WDK (Wallet Development Kit)
Key capabilities: Self-custodial accounts, gas payments in USDT, sponsored gas, smooth UX

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Most conversations about financial inclusion in Africa start with the wrong assumption. The problem isn't that banking is too expensive or too slow, though it is both. The deeper problem is that for large parts of the continent, functioning banking infrastructure simply doesn't exist in a form that works for cross-border commerce.

Take a logistics company operating across Europe, the US, and Africa. They move goods. They have suppliers and customers on multiple continents. They need to receive payments in Naira, settle in EUR, and transfer funds across jurisdictions without waiting days or paying fees that eat into margins. Getting a bank account that supports all of this is not a paperwork problem. It is often structurally impossible.

Or take an individual in Nigeria or Ghana holding physical US dollars. Not because they distrust banks in principle, but because bank accounts restrict dollar withdrawals, governments have historically mandated conversion to local currency, and storing value in Naira or Cedi means watching it depreciate. The informal dollar economy across Africa is enormous. People hold cash not because they prefer it, but because it is the most reliable store of value available to them.

This is the problem Shiga is solving. Not improving banking. Replacing it, for the people and businesses it doesn't serve.

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What Shiga Built

Shiga provides stablecoin accounts that work anywhere: self-custodial wallets with bank-like features, cross-border transfers without correspondent banking, and conversion between stablecoins and local fiat currencies. Users can receive payments in local currency, convert to USDT or USDC, and hold or transfer without the restrictions imposed by traditional banking.

The difference from a custodial crypto wallet is meaningful. With a custodial product, the company holds the keys. That means the company can freeze the account, comply with a seizure order, or go out of business and take access with them. For users who have already learned not to rely on institutions, that is not an improvement. It is the same risk with a different interface.

Shiga's accounts are self-custodial. The user holds the keys. No one else can freeze the account or compel access to the funds. That is not a feature. For this market, it is the baseline requirement.

One of Shiga's customers is Onyx, a global logistics company doing trade across Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Before Shiga, Onyx faced rapid currency depreciation on African holdings, slow and expensive international transfers, and the operational complexity of managing accounts across multiple jurisdictions. After integrating Shiga, they receive payments in Naira, EUR, USD, and GBP, convert automatically to their preferred settlement currency, and move funds without intermediaries. The accounts are virtual, multichain, and available wherever they operate.

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Gas Abstraction Is a Market Access Problem

Here is the detail that matters most for any builder targeting this market, and the one that is most often underestimated.

Users on Shiga hold USDT. They do not hold ETH.

This is not an edge case. Across Africa, stablecoin adoption is driven by the need to hold dollar-denominated value. ETH is a speculative asset to most of these users. Asking them to acquire ETH just to pay gas fees is asking them to add complexity, cost, and a volatile asset to a product that is supposed to be simpler than a bank. For most users, that request ends the conversation.

Shiga solved this at the infrastructure level, not the UX level. Users pay gas in USDT, the same asset they already hold. For certain flows, gas is sponsored entirely. The user never sees a gas fee. They see a transaction.

This distinction matters for builders. Gas abstraction in a mature market is a quality-of-life improvement. In an emerging market where users have no native token and no intention of acquiring one, it is the difference between a product that works and one that does not. If you are building for users who hold stablecoins and not ETH, gas abstraction is not optional.

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The Infrastructure Layer

Candide provides the bundler and paymaster infrastructure that powers Shiga's smart accounts.

The bundler processes ERC-4337 UserOperations, the standard transaction format for smart accounts. The paymaster handles gas, either accepting USDT as payment or sponsoring transactions entirely. Because both are built to the ERC-4337 standard, they integrate with any compliant SDK. Shiga built on Tether's WDK (Wallet Development Kit), which plugs directly into the same standard infrastructure. No proprietary lock-in. No custom integration work. The stack is composable by design.

Self-custody flows from the same architecture. There is no custodial key management at the infrastructure layer. Candide processes transactions. It does not hold keys. The user's wallet is theirs.

For Shiga, this meant they could integrate production-grade smart account infrastructure without rebuilding their stack or adopting a proprietary system. The bundler and paymaster slotted into the SDK layer they were already using.

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Africa's Informal Dollar Economy Is Going Onchain

The macro trend underneath Shiga's product is not subtle. Across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and across the continent, individuals and businesses are already holding dollar-denominated value outside the banking system. Physical cash. Informal transfers. Peer-to-peer exchange networks. The demand for a stable, accessible, portable store of value has existed for decades. What is new is the infrastructure to serve it digitally.

Stablecoin accounts are the natural destination for that transition. But they only work as a banking replacement if three things are true: the account is self-custodial (no one can freeze it), gas is invisible to the user (they hold stablecoins, not ETH), and the infrastructure is composable enough to integrate with the tools builders are already using.

Shiga is proof all three are possible today. The accounts work. The gas model works. The infrastructure integrates with standard SDKs. For builders targeting similar markets, this is what the stack looks like.

The infrastructure for Africa's financial transition is being built now.

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If you're working on something similar, Candide documentation is at docs.candide.dev. For the WDK integration layer, see docs.wdk.tether.io.

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