Barriers in Cross-border payments for NGOs

The Challenge

Our client, a payments platform provider, identified a global NGO as a potential target.

They needed to understand the current landscape of cross-border payments, i.e. what are the most challenging corridors (by value and frequency of transactions), how current providers are servicing the market, what are main pain points, unmet needs and wants.

Our approach

We proposed a 2-stage approach, starting with desk research to provide a landscape of NGO payments, the largest donor and the largest receiving countries.

The main phase involved one-to-one in-depth interviews with financial decision makers/ payment stakeholders within NGOs to understand how they were operating, what the biggest challenges they were facing and their appetite for a new proposition in line with the client’s offer.

The survey was run in several markets, the US, UK, Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland Africa and the Middle East.

The outcome

The research provided the client with a map of fund flows by identifying the main donor and main receiving corridors.

It provided insights into the number of ways used to make payments even in the most difficult markets.

Ultimately, we were able to demonstrate that there was an opportunity for our client’s platform to service the NGO sector by bridging the gap between existing providers and facilitating the process overall.

Following this research, the client approached Savanta to support them with another business challenge.