Lowering Costs for Charities: An Alvarum Payment Platform Case Study

Alvarum - Fundraising platform

Alvarum was founded in 2008 with the aim of revolutionising the process of raising financial support, so-called fundraising, for charities and non-profit organisations. Today they are the leader in online fundraising in France and Germany.

The company offers scalable solutions for every type of charity. From simple, easy-to-use software to business process outsourcing. It focuses its activities on the social character of projects based on the values of innovation, credibility and transparency. Alvarum's business partners include well-known charities such as the German WWF or the French Red Cross, as well as prestigious events such as the Berlin Marathon.

The mission is to provide institutions, associations and individuals with funds to finance charitable projects in Europe. We cooperate with Alvarum in several projects. A major challenge is the Alvarum Payment project. What challenges did we find ?

Alvarum Payment - challenges and implemented solutions

This is a project that we have been implementing from the very beginning. We have diagnosed several problems and challenges:

1. A lack of full visibility for the organisation handling the process of transactions made by donors - in the previous system the UI - User Interface and data flow were incorrectly designed.

Our Solution - We systematized the payment process so that during the payment, we always know what status the payment is in, to whom it should go and who made it. Thanks to this, the credibility of the tool (and thus of Alvarum) has increased significantly.

2. Increasing the company's profitability by reducing costs - external payment providers -Alvarum was using Stripe (an electronic payment platform), which generated very high service costs.

Our solution - We built a payment system that fully replaced the existing platform. In this way, we achieved our goal which was to reduce service costs and the possibility of independent operation without compromising quality.

3. A lack of full control over the Public Benefit Organisation account identification process (payment account). The charity should comply with the KYC/KYB requirements in order to properly process withdrawals from the system. This is an important part of securing payment systems to prevent financial embezzlement.

Our Solution - a complete KYC/KYB process - which was not available in other payment systems. Our team prepared a semi-automatic system, where verification documents are sent to a trusted institution. After verification, synchronisation with the Alvarum Payment system and full activation of the charity account takes place.

4. Control of the cash flow process - inability to verify the status of transactions at each payment stage. Transactions were becoming invisible.

Our solution - Full control, related to visibility - we know where the funds are, when they were paid in and when they were paid out. From the moment of posting the operation increasing the balance to the moment of disbursement by the non-profit organisation, the system allows for full control over the performed transaction.

5. A lack of transparency in the management of fees for transactions and the inability to define fees for individual accounts of non-profit organisations.

Our Solution - We developed a complex platform that allows you to freely define a payment model for a transaction. The whole process is very intuitive, manageable, clear and transparent.

Alvarum Payment - a suggested solution

Before starting the project, the Alvarum CEO was consulted in order to fully understand the business sense of the project and manage it so that the complex software was implemented in a short period of time.

As a result of this work, the development team gained domain knowledge that allowed them to define the problems and prepare a solution proposal with a preliminary plan for their implementation, which allowed the work to start.The development team consisted of two backend developers and one frontend developer as well as the project leader.

The development process itself was formalised and divided into team responsibilities. The team worked according to a prepared plan and communicated the progress of works on an ongoing basis. This helped the project get off to a smooth start and reduced the indirect costs of maintaining a team of developers.

Alvarum Payment - Result

1. We have built a generic payment provider that can act as a service for multiple client applications. The solution supports the full process of creating and identifying a charity account together with KYC/KYB identification and UBO information - Ultimate Business Owner, the so-called real benefit.

2. Possibility to monitor transactions at all stages of the procedure, as well as the ability to process multiple transactions per minute.

3. Ensuring system resistance to errors resulting from asynchronicity and cooperation with many client applications.

4. Compliance with DSP2 and 3ds requirements.

5. Full automation of the payment process.

6. Possibility of free shaping of custom fees for transactions.

7. Providing account management interface for non-profit organisations.

8. Generating reports including information on deposits and withdrawals.

9. Providing support for SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) transfers.

10. Providing support for internal transfers between Public Benefit Organisations accounts.