Neobank Aidbanc, which launched operations last year, is reportedly planning to assist NGOs by providing them with digital banking and spend management software that they need to deliver financial aid.
The proper distribution of financial aid can have a significant positive impact on the lives of individuals and communities in developing nations. During the past five decades, over $1 trillion in financial aid has been provided by donor countries to underdeveloped or developing nations, in order to meet critical requirements.
Many individuals and organizations in developing countries need help with maintaining food security, ongoing economic development, and even initiatives related to climate change. Financial aid plays a key role in supporting the lives of millions of people, and can even provide an opportunity for social mobility, where people are lifted out of poverty which allows them to become more independent and self-sufficient.
Multinational non-profit organizations often struggle to manage their finances, as they may be required to maintain local bank accounts in every jurisdiction in which they provide services. Most payments and expenses also have to be settled offline and usually involve cash transactions. This can make it quite challenging to reliably keep track of payments.
The existing financial system and its supporting legacy infrastructure leads to fragmented data that resides across many different systems and locations, without any interconnectivity. These different systems might not be fully compatible either. This can make it difficult for NGOs to manage their funds. It may also lead to a lack of transparency.
Neobank AidBanc aims to help NGOs with their digital or virtual banking and spending management requirements by assisting them with effectively distributing relief aid.
AidBanc plans to assist NGOs with managing global spending from just one FDIC corporate account. They’ll be able to make easy payments to local bank accounts, mobile or online wallets, or settle transactions with cash in 175 different countries.
The neobank’s management claims that these payments can be made with real-time visibility of expenses and current financial position, globally, from an intuitive, and easy-to-use dashboard.
According to its management team, AidBanc stands out from other neobanks because it’s focused on contributing to social good. Donors that use the digital bank’s services may easily and accurately track how aid money is being spent, AidBanc claims.
The bank’s management is focused on building AidBanc as part of the 2020 Class of the Techstars & Western Union Accelerator.
The AidBanc team states:
“[We aim to] empower NGOs … [by providing] a digital bank account for global non-profits from which they can seamlessly manage their share of $150+ billion in international aid across multiple countries…. Specially designed for NGOs managing multiple projects in different countries, AidBanc has an integrated expense management, budgeting, payroll, payables solution as well as an innovative local sub-account access for contracted local NGOs to manage allocated funds.”
AidBanc offers NGOs the control they must have over their funds along with rich reporting tools and “real-time visibility” of all global expenditures.