Our Journey
In 2016, we set out on a journey to build a new type of financial institution for aid. We made a lot of progress - but we didn’t achieve our biggest ambition. We wanted to encourage anybody who’s thinking to start their own moonshot project, so we‘ve converted our website into a learning hub, where we can share our journey - and the lessons we learned on the way.
Our Story
Ben Joakim
Founder
Paul Currion
Founder
4 years ago, we set out on a journey to transform the way money flows for social impact. We came together to build Disberse - a new type of financial institution - to address key problems for the aid industry.
During those 4 years, we developed the first version of the platform, secured authorisation from the FCA as a small electronic money institution, delivered a series of alpha pilots, and secured pre-seed investment from Comic Relief, and went onto secure partnerships and deliver projects with key institutional donors.
The Problem
The global financial system is slow, expensive and opaque.
Banks weren’t built to meet the needs of the aid industry.
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Transparency
Funds cannot be traced from end-to-end, creating potential for mismanagement, and decreasing accountability.
Speed
It can take weeks for transfers to arrive, even during an emergency, slowing down the response and making it difficult to plan.
Efficiency
Bank charges, poor exchange rates and currency fluctuations raise costs, reducing the amount that reaches those in need.
Mismanagement
These three problems increase the likelihood of waste, including potential
for fraud and corruption.
Alpha Phase
In 2018 we delivered an alpha series of pilots in partnership with the Start Network and its NGO members. These pilots validated our model of distributing funds faster, cheaper and more transparently.
Dorcas International,
Terre des Hommes, SOS Kinderdorpen
Cash distributions between Netherlands & Ukraine
Troicaire & Caritas Rwanda
Livelihoods project between Ireland & Rwanda
Positive Women & BoMake
Girlds education project between the UK & Swaziland
Following the success of our Alpha Pilots, Dorcas Aid International asked us to participate in a Dutch Relief Alliance NGO consortium bid with the Netherlands Red Cross, to launch the 121 Project
We were responsible for setting up channels between individual donors in the Netherlands and UK, and individual recipients via banks in Ethiopia and Malawi. Unfortunately the pilot was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Beta Phase
In 2020, we partnered with the UK Government Department for International Development (DFID) and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA).
The pilot was organised as a series of sprints, during which we conducted research and analysis of Country Based Pooled Funds in Iraq & the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
The pilot culminated in a Simulation Exercise based on historical transactions worth over $140 million, with the planned next step of carrying out live transactions on our platform.
SPRINT 1
We carried out a consultation round with key stakeholders in DFID and UNOCHA, to establish whether our idea made sense, and which problems we could potentially address.
SPRINT 2
We collected existing data from UN databases, and new data from interviews with implementing partners. We analysed this data and started to develop visualisations.
SPRINT 3
We implemented the Simulation Exercise, compared the performance
of the Disberse platform to existing channels, and analysed where the potential improvements were found.
During this time, we faced the typical challenges that all fintech startups face - time to market, product market fit, talent fit - but also faced events that created significant uncertainty for our business, the aid industry and key clients.
In July 2020 we were closing a seed investment round of $8 million when our key investor withdrew at the last stage due to ongoing economic uncertainty. The challenges that we sought to address still face the aid industry - but we hope that we moved the discussion forward.
One of our core values was sharing our learning, and so we set up this website to make those resources available to others. We believe that this is essential to help other organisations to develop their own innovative solutions to the challenges we aimed to address.
Timeline
Resources
DFID Beta Pilots
Alpha Pilots
Podcasts
Other resources
With thanks to
Aleksandar Ostojic
Alex Johnson
Amir Rizwan
Annemarie Poorterman
Antony Hermann
Archie Graham
Asad Rahman
Ashley Kemball-Cook
Carwyn Jones
Claire James
David Vigoreux
David Woolcock
Francisco Riera
Gavin Francis
Imogen Bunyard
Kathryn Llewellyn
Laura Bailey
Mark Bloom
Marko Kovacevic
Martyn Davies
Miljan Milidrag
Nick Ward
Paul Harwood
Paul Webb-Jones
Pavle Batuta
Peter Chapman
Rachel Hillier
Rhodri Davies
Ruben Mulder
Sam Goudie
Sean Lowrie
Sue Guy
Tom Keatinge
Tomasz Mloduchowski