Cape Town - GovChat has announced its virtual wallet that will enable citizens to donate money to their chosen cause easily at 0% costs.
GovChat is South Africa’s official civic engagement platform in partnership with the Department of Co-operative Government and Traditional Affairs(CoGTA). It is available across three platforms: WhatsApp, Web and USSD.
The virtual payments feature comes at an opportune time as the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos found that the top global risk factors by impact, pose catastrophic risks to humanity. These risks have recently been felt in South Africa with the scar of a fire that has been raging along the Garden Route, and the Khayelitsha and Signal Hill fires.
Chief executive Eldrid Jordaan said: “What our team has noticed over the last 6 months is a number of scammers seeking cash and funding in and around disaster areas. Such actions have a devastating impact on the ‘gifting-economy’ that’s being driven by the many superb NGO’s and Community Organisations that band together to get things done. Removing barriers that prevent valuable, life-saving donations from reaching communities that are devastated by a disaster is well worth the effort. Our aim is to bring communities and their government closer together. We hope to achieve that by continuing to build technology anchored in social good.”
What is being developed on GovChat’s WhatsApp channel, which is accessible to over 20 million South Africans is the ability for citizens in all GovChat partner countries to access their wallet.
This enables them to give money to their favourite cause, relief organisation or national disaster in 3 easy WhatsApp prompts. In less than two years, $1 billion was raised from a variety of causes from 1 million users with many donations exceeding $28.The 0% transaction creates an opportunity for Africans to impactfully give to verified and organisations and community groups that are having an impact in their communities.
“As a data-driven business, at every level, GovChat is about understanding how citizens are interacting with the platform across all channels, including WhatsApp. What we’re coming to grips with are the massive opportunities that many of our features can provide for our partners, NGO, CBOs etc. We’ve been listening to activists and community leaders that are running these life-changing organisations, and committed ourselves through our partnership team to make the giving process more seamless,” Goitse Konopi, Chief Data Officer said.
The platform, which is due to come off beta testing in Ghana and Nigeria, is expected to launch in those markets with the payment and virtual wallet functionality during this quarter.