Farah

I grew up in Dubai, a city of extremes where the disparity in wealth is not evident to a casual observer or a visitor. As a journalist that inequity seemed even more obvious in light of a gleaming city in the desert built on the backs of immigrant workers, with little to no rights.

I moved to Chennai, India, after I was married. Much as I loved going back to the country of my parents, I was dispelled of any romantic notions I might have had when I saw the day to day struggles of people just trying to make ends meet. Being a journalist, I traveled extensively and the stories I witnessed informed my world.

Whether it be Dubai or India, inequity is everywhere.

Fast forward to my present. I now live in Chicago, my home since 1998. My first taste of entrepreneurship was in 2000 when I launched a magazine for Asian women. The publication relied on advertising and just as we started to establish ourselves in the publishing space, Sahaara Magazine (meaning support) wound down after 3 years of its inception, since I chose to stay home to raise my children.

20 years later, I incorporated istash. The idea of a digital wallet that eliminated transaction fees for small businesses was born in a post covid world, when many small business owners, unable to bear the burden of uncertainty and skyrocketing credit card fees, simply chose to shut down. It hit close to home when small businesses in my neighborhood folded overnight. Turns out many of them, already operating on thin margins, couldn't justify the skyrocketing swipe fees that ate into their profits.

The concept of istash began as a conversation around an idea that seemed preposterous and yet completely viable. Is there a way around credit card fees that could make small businesses and their customers both win? What if one could make a payment from a wallet that was funded by a bank account and there was no credit card option? How would that look? What would make people use it? What if the merchant could repurpose credit card swipe fees to instead pay instant cash to their customers to encourage loyalty? What if that cash back could be moved into the customers bank account? All perfectly great on paper, but would the idea actually work?

I decided to test the idea in Lincoln Park where my son attended high school, allowing me to frequent the mom and pops in the neighborhood and speak to college students that studied at DePaul University, offering us a perfect testing market.

Every business owner I spoke to seemed eager to know what it entailed for them and wanted to learn more. I then connected with the Marketing department at DePaul and hired interns to see if students would use a digital wallet that gave them instant cash back. The answer was a resounding yes.

In August 2025, istash launched on the App Store and Google Play Store and today we have 12 merchants and a few hundred users.