A Global eHumanitarian Solution

For industry outsiders– and even for some of us who have spent our careers in the business– payments can seem technical or even mundane. But the pleasant reality is that payments solutions can make a real difference in people’s lives at a very human level.

We‘re fortunate to be part of a fantastic solution announced today in Manilla. International humanitarian non-profit Oxfam in the Philippines, Visa, and i2c announced a better model for humanitarian aid payments to help communities affected by disasters. The Electronic Prepaid Solution (EPS) Project, piloted in the Philippines, is a multi-functional electronic prepaid system that will support money transfers during disasters. i2c is supplying the core technology through our single global SaaS platform, and the solution is supported by several local partners.

Compared with cash, eHumanitarian funding disbursement has several important advantages. First, it is fast, secure, and efficient. Using our platform, the program can be rolled out quickly, anywhere in the world, so affected communities can get the financial lifeblood they need. It’s less expensive for the NGO to administer, which means more of the money donated gets into the hands of disaster victims.

Second, eHumanitarian solutions like the EPS project provide people in affected communities with basic savings and banking services, an important benefit beyond the immediate short-term need for funds. Reloadable cards provide an excellent payment vehicle for workers whose livelihoods were interrupted by disasters but who could be employed in temporary jobs, such as reconstruction efforts. This approach reduces overall aid distribution costs, which supports a primary objective of Oxfam.

The EPS project delivers on all of these benefits by providing a much faster and more secure way of distributing funding to large scale populations in need during times of natural disaster. One of the key capabilities i2c is bringing to this project is the ability to rapidly deploy new instances of the solution to support Oxfam anywhere in the world, as quickly as an emergency situation requires it.

i2c is proud to be working with world class partners like Oxfam and Visa to help make a real difference in people’s lives, something that is core to our company’s mission.

Watch the video below to learn more about the Oxfam EPS project.

Video courtesy of Oxfam International.