Our mission is sustain nonprofits wherever they are. We've worked with international organizations ever since we've launched GivingLoop. We want to continue with this mission, sustainability for all impactful organizations.
However, collecting funds on our platform is something, and delivering these collected amounts in your local bank accounts is a different story.
We used to use our regional bank accounts to locally transfer the funds, but this didn't help as much as it added headache to our operations. For that, we've been discussing potential partnerships with transfer mediums for the last 3 months, and we are excited to announce that the system is in place now!
Today, in the backend of your Withdrawal Request, we'll issue a transfer through our partner Western Union to your local bank account and in your account's currency.
Using Western Union does NOT mean you'll be able to pick up your funds from a Western Union accepting shop. We are still doing Wire Transfers to your bank account using Western Union as the engine for that.
This comes with multiple benefits, including:
1. We don't need intermediary financial parties anymore, what makes us (and you) avoid unnecessary extra charges.
2. Low currency exchange fees, they charge 1 to 2% on currency exchange. Banks charge around 4%. This means you can still receive the funds in your local currency if you don't want to open a USD bank account.
3. Straight-forward process. You request a withdrawal, we do it. We had many complications in the middle in the past, we don't have these anymore.
Your bank account (important):
These are some tips on the side of your bank account and your bank account details:
- Though you could receive the funds in your local currency today, we always prefer that you open a USD bank account to allow us transfer to it so you take the responsibility for currency exchange. We don't want to be a major part of this conversion solution to give you all the freedom. But we still can do it as mentioned in point 2 above.
- We face some problems identifying your bank account details from time to time (during setting up your details). So please bear with us until we have your correct information on file to avoid bouncing transfers and additional charges. We'll do our best to cooperative and fast with this!
Limitations and future potential:
Our partnership with Western Union doesn't stop here. The main limitation with it today is that the transfer will need approximately 10 to 14 days to settle in your bank account. We don't like it, we are always working on improving our processes, but it's a good beginning for us.
We are looking forward to taking our partnership with Western Union to the level where we achieve:
- Fast transfers: We know we can speed up the process, it needs some hard work but we want to achieve 3 - 4 day transfers instead of the long 10 to 14 days transfers.
- Automated transfers: We believe payments should be scheduled and automated, you don't have to request withdrawals, since we want you to boost your sustainability. We know we can achieve this but needs some time and very hard work.
- Lower fees: With mass payments we should get better pricing from Western Union and this will reflect on our charges to your organization.
Happy sustainability! ;)