The problem
Anyone visiting Syria hit the same wall: their cards and mobile wallets stopped working at the border. Tourism services — hotels, transport, experiences — were scattered across offline intermediaries, and the country was effectively cut off from the global digital-payments grid.
How it works
My Syria, developed by 121 Living — a company founded by UAE-based Syrian entrepreneurs Rami Kaiem, Feras Kaiem, Waseem Qudmani, and Kinan Madi — is a tourism and lifestyle super app that went live on 30 July 2026 under the patronage of the Ministry of Tourism. Visitors browse and book services in one app and pay with Apple Pay, Google Pay, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express: positioned by its backers as the first application in Syria to support cross-border digital payments (The Fintech Times).
Pain points
A cash-only visitor economy, no aggregated booking layer, and millions of diaspora Syrians and tourists whose spending power couldn’t enter the formal economy.
Business model
Marketplace plus payments: take rates on booked tourism and lifestyle services and volume on the payment rails, with success hinging on signing up enough merchants to make the app the default visitor wallet.
Challenges
Payment infrastructure in a sanctions-shaped economy is fragile by definition; merchant density has to be built city by city; and a launch backed by ministry patronage still has to earn repeat consumer habit to become a network rather than a press release.
Funding
- No funding round is publicly documented; the venture is backed by its founding company 121 Living and launched with Ministry of Tourism patronage.
Latest — July 2026
My Syria went live on 30 July 2026 under the patronage of the Ministry of Tourism, launching as Syria’s first app with cross-border digital-payment support.