1. Capital trapped in pre-funded accounts
To pay out instantly in Lagos, Nairobi or Accra, an operator keeps a funded bank account (a nostro) in each country, sized for peak days. That capital earns little, is exposed to local-currency devaluation, and grows with every corridor added. An operator in ten markets runs ten idle float pools, and an importer’s bank repeats the exercise in reverse for every supplier country.Corridor's answer
One pathUSD balance on the Tempo hub funds every corridor. Payout partners are funded per payment, just in time, and a 7-day forecast in the treasury console says when to top up.
2. Slow settlement through correspondent chains
A cross-border wire passes through correspondent banks, each adding cut-off windows, compliance checks and a day of float. T+1 to T+3 is normal; missing a cut-off on a Thursday can mean Tuesday. While money is in flight, neither sender nor beneficiary can use it.Corridor's answer
Settlement on Tempo is final in about 0.6 seconds. The slowest remaining step is the local rail (bank transfer or mobile money), which the partner runs in minutes.
3. Thin FX and opaque spreads
Many African currencies trade thinly against the dollar, and onshore conversion can be restricted (China’s CNY is the obvious case for importers). Spreads widen at every hop, and the customer rarely sees the rate before committing.Corridor's answer
A firm rate from the partner that pays out, quoted with a time limit before funds move, and settlement in dollar stablecoins between hops so there is no intermediate conversion.
4. Reconciliation by hand, across providers
A single payout touches the operator’s ledger, a bank collection, one or more stablecoin providers, several chains and a payout partner, each with its own ids and dashboard. Matching them is still largely done with statements and spreadsheets. A payout that bridged but never reached the bank is usually found when the customer complains, float is stranded across venues nobody sees together, and switching providers breaks the process.Corridor's answer
Every payout is matched from funding to bank credit. Read-only, Corridor matches the company’s own records against the wallets it already runs and flags what is missing, short or unidentified (pilot). When Corridor moves the money, a 32-byte Corridor Reference rides in every chain’s native memo and every partner’s free-text field, so matching is exact: on testnet, 45 of 45 movements reconcile, and the treasury vault’s on-chain balance equals the ledger exactly.