Triangle Generation Humanitaire (TGH): building transparent aid process based with inCust

Triangle Generation Humanitaire (TGH) is a French international solidarity organization based in Lyon, France. The association designs and implements emergency, rehabilitation and development programs in the following sectors: water, hygiene and sanitation, civil engineering, food security and rural development, socio-educational and psychosocial aspects. TGH is currently operating in 10 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

Specifics: the need for building a transparent process for distribution of non-financial aid, communication with beneficiaries and generation of detailed project reports

Business Needs: 

• A transparent reporting system at every level of the project: it’s necessary to accurately and honestly show the spending of specific beneficiaries in real time.
• The aid is paid to specific businesses, in which beneficiaries are allowed to spend money only on certain groups of goods. For example, beneficiaries can’t buy alcohol.
• Security of personal data is important, it should not be allowed to use any governmental or other fiscal structures.
• Ease of deployment and integration with partners. It’s necessary to be able to make settlements with partners quickly.

Solution:

inCust CLM is used as cloud service (SaaS)

Modules used:

• Coupons and Certificates
• Point of Sale (POS)
• Information and Communications
• Customer database

Results:

Several dozens of projects have been implemented, the average launch of a project with data preparation is 2-3 days. We have been cooperating with TGH for more than 2 years.

Project process:

Before the start of the project, the arrangement is made with the donors about the set of beneficiaries and the segments of goods and services that these beneficiaries need. The data are grouped by regions and partners.

The main task is that a particular beneficiary, having a certain credit limit, could come to one of the partners and was able to purchase goods or services taking the credit limit into account. It is not desirable to use a user ID (passport, driver’s license, etc.) for authorization to avoid provision of important personal and financial information to the partners. A key feature for TGH was the ease of authentication of the beneficiary without the use of special tools. And our ability to identify and authorize the beneficiary just by the mobile phone number was very useful.

The partner uses special software (inCust Terminal), which can be installed on a phone, tablet or any computer. A customer tells their phone number, the partner checks the current credit limit and selects categories of goods or services, for which the beneficiary spends money, and checks the identity of the customer, it’s confirmed by SMS with a password. Funds are credited in real time and all reports that make mutual settlements with partners possible are updated immediately.

The system features the effective method of binding the status of different customers for different partners or products. For example, a customer can visit certain stores and cannot go to others.

Information about any changes in the customer’s account immediately arrives through available channels (for example, SMS to the customer) – that was very important for TGH. A beneficiary always knows how much money they have on account and how much was spent. To check this, one doesn’t need to install any programs, go to the site, or make phone calls. Also, a beneficiary receives information not only about expenses but also about account credits.

The ability to export and import data was another important requirement. Before the project, most of the data was handled in a traditional way, in Excel. With inCust, TGH uses access to a powerful analytics system. The inCust platform prepares analytical reports that can be used by other analytical systems.

Features Implemented: 

• transparent settlements with beneficiaries;
• payment processing;
• easy creation of multi-level coalition programs;
• full reporting of the use of funds;
• omnichannel communication with beneficiaries;
• mobile app;
• possibility of non-bank identification;
• ability to use the service anonymously.

Since its first operations, TGH has been working with the inCust company, which provides all the services for setting up and managing software allowing the distribution of electronic vouchers (coupons). Thanks to this partnership, TGH succeeded in providing assistance with the electronic system, enabling beneficiaries to make the purchases they want in the grocery stores of their village and neighbourhood. For over a year, over 17 000 individuals and 31 institutional centres have benefited from 7 rounds of electronic distributions. Beyond the commercial partnership, inCust, represented by its director Maxim Ronshin, demonstrated an active involvement and commitment and a high level of competences. lndeed, inCust and its team have developed the software that meets the specific constraints and objectives of humanitarian actions and have demonstrated flexibility and responsiveness to address all the encountered obstacles and problems. Finally, TGH is particularly satisfied with this collaboration and wishes to develop it more to make it sustainable.

Stephane Vengut Head of Mission TGH