Western Union’s Brian Harris on solving last-mile financing for NGOs

Just about a year ago Western Union, the global payment services company, committed to developing a product designed especially for NGOs that would enable these global organizations to deliver cash to partners or beneficiaries on the ground, thereby overcoming the challenges of the “last mile.”

Now, a year later, Brian Harris, the chief product officer of Western Union Business Solutions explained how the company approached the NGO GlobalPay system.

“Philosophically we took the NGO as our customer, and we needed to understand what their problems were, what their pain points were,” he said. “I think we started out with this perception that it was just about moving funds. Really what we started to understand were the very specific use cases.”

The system was then designed around the two greatest priorities – getting money to field workers in times of crises and supplying larger funds to support the communities they serve, Harris said.

Western Union worked with 36 organizations in the pilot year of NGO GlobalPay and has now expanded to 60 countries. Harris said the system will be operational in 189 countries by the end of the year.

Explore related content:

• Talking social enterprises and partnerships at CGI

• How USAID’s partners are transitioning to e-payments

• The ‘last mile’ challenge: What NGOs need

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