We talk a lot about our ‘digital solutions’ in sustainable supply chain management. While this may make a lot of sense to us, many of you may wonder what we mean when discussing the benefits of  ‘digital wallets’ within our health programs. So what is our digital wallet, really? And what makes it such an impactful tool?

A secure and multifaceted platform

When it comes to money, farmers might worry about adding funds to a digital wallet. What if you lose your money – how do you know it’s safe? Each transaction (e.g. a withdrawal request) is manually approved and confirmed, to make sure all cash flows are safe. Additionally, our platform is also run in a certified ‘HDS Paas’ (Health Data Hoster Platform-as-a-Service), which is a complicated way of saying that we apply the same level of stringent security to our wallet as health data platforms in Europe use.

Not only is it secure, the wallet has 3 different uses, making it the perfect all-in-one solution for farmers:

1. Electronic vouchers. We send electronic vouchers for predefined services such as an ultrasound during pregnancy, malaria drugs, or even schooling material. With vouchers, the service comes free of charge.
2. Savings wallet.Farmers can save, send, receive, and pay for healthcare services or other targets. Savings can be incentivized by providing cash transfers to the wallet once a farmer saves money. For example, if a farmer saves 50 Ghanaian Cedi of mobile money to the wallet, we top it up with another 50 Ghanaian Cedi, effectively encouraging savings behavior.
3. Direct premium payments. Farmers can receive direct premium payments over the wallet, greatly increasing transparency and timeliness of payments and promoting trust among farmers.

An accessible solution

For us, the most important thing when implementing digital tools is making sure that everybody can access them. Our digital wallet was designed with and for farming communities, with the goal of making access to financial services easy. Regardless of access to a mobile phone, their literacy, or economic status, farmers and their household members can use our digital wallet – and the best part is, they don’t even need a smartphone, or internet! Beneficiaries can load funds into the wallet at any mobile vendor: for example, in Ghana, this is often MTN. Farmers therefore only need a simple phone or a SIM card to start saving or access their premium payments.

Accessibility isn’t just good for ease-of-use: it’s our way of fighting for gender equality. In many countries, women’s economic opportunities are limited by unequal access to economic assets, education, and paid work. With a solution that requires so little to get started, we’re enabling women to take control of their finances and reducing financial inequities.

Full transparency and reduced risks

When it comes to finances, a multi-use platform and accessibility are all well and good, but what about long-term money management? The digital wallet can show farmers and the company a full audit trail of their transactions, which are transparently recorded on the Elucid platform. This data is easily accessible via a single online hub, meaning that if one of our farmers wants to gain a better understanding of their cash flows, they can easily do so. With this transparency, we aim to improve financial literacy and empower our beneficiaries to take their finances into their own hands.

We also make sure that there is no financial risk to farmers using our wallet. For example, premium payments are performed in EUR, and only converted into GHS upon withdrawal by the farmer. This reduces the currency risk for our beneficiaries.

Keeping it simple

In the end we want one main thing from our digital wallet: financial simplicity, with the highest impact possible to improve farmer livelihoods.