One of them is Walter Kim. Walter is a freelance architect, father of two, with an established career and growing social circle. In the last couple of months, however, he was facing certain issues with his employer — a construction company — resulting in a delay of his payments. Although he always has a “safety cushion” of funds for emergencies, his bank account was draining slowly from day-to-day expenses to support his young family.

As a parent, Walter wants the best education possible for his children, and he thinks this should start as early as possible. Therefore, he had decided to enroll his two children in a bilingual private school — as the local public schools don’t offer the possibility to learn foreign languages at early ages.

When soliciting credit from banks and traditional credit providers, these rejected his requests for the loan for different reasons — no stable income, no stable employer, or they simply thought that kids education is not important enough or can’t provide a “return on investment”. He tried to tell them that he is awaiting a big paycheck from his current employer in no later than three months’ time, but this was too risky for the institutions to accept and proceed with the loan. As school enrollment deadlines could not be moved, and the tuition payment period was due in a month — Walter needed to think of new options.

He recalled hearing from a colleague about informal savings groups that can help their members get loans, insurance, and investments, facilitated by the Akropolis mobile platform. Walter decided to ask for an introduction and try his luck in receiving a loan through this option.

After a quick introduction from his colleague who was already part of the savings group, he got admitted into it.

After a going through a few, simple steps to set up his account, Walter opened a tab to check all the most important information about the cooperative he wanted to join — how many people there are and their financial goals — the core information. While going through it, he noticed that in order to receive a loan, he would need to make regular contributions throughout the month to prove his reliability. What an incredible new possibility! Much simpler than trying to negotiate with different banks. He checked the system features and found a fast fiat-on-off-ramp, Wyre, to make his contributions to the group.

On a weekly schedule, Walter started making contributions of 50$, and after a month, he saw that was finally able to request a loan from the savings group.

After creating a request, the members of the co-op checked what Walter wanted to use the funds for. They also reviewed his commitment to the community based on regular contributions. To Walter’s relief, the majority voted “yes” for him. When the voting period ended, Walter received a notification that funds were transferred to his account.

And that’s the story of one architect that was able to pay for his kids’ education via a reliable novel way of interacting with like-minded individuals.

Does this story resonate on you? Have you ever been rejected by a bank or any other traditional institution when you asked for a loan, wanted to invest in something or simply wanted to get access to insurance? Share it with us — and we’ll be happy to help you build an organization that can achieve your goals, and much more.