For those following the growth and development of the Branche project, you will know that it is more than a financial services app. While the core function of Branche is to provide payday loans and cheque cashing, those services have a context that cannot, and should not, be ignored.

While the majority of the Secondary Financial Industry (SFI) customer base may be convenience motivated, and of the remaining minority many are one time users, there is a very important group of low income, vulnerable, and at-risk individuals that take advantage of SFI providers. Whether it’s a disabled person cashing a social assistance cheque, or a man living in a shelter needing short term credit for a rent deposit, there are a lot of people just getting by who need a bit of help to get a fresh start, or even to just keep going.

The true power of Branche is not in it’s ability to cash cheques via a smart-contract, or dispense credit via cryptocurrency. The true power of Branche is it’s ability to bring people together and provide them a platform to create mutually beneficial and positive financial transactions. In most cases, the best approach to accomplish this is to put basic rules in place or build some really great tools. Essentially we work to create an open field of potential and opportunity and see where our users go with that. In the case of the particularly vulnerable and at-risk customers however, we have found ways of applying the same philosophies to create special tools and mechanisms to help them.

We knew that the best way to help the most vulnerable, was to help those who help the most vulnerable. We also knew the best way to do that was to leverage the “crowd” effect. In the end, we created a special kind of liquidity pool, and a special kind of Vendor that can access it.

Here is a rough breakdown of how it works:

Based on a Lender or Vendor’s activity, the app will provide contextual feedback to suggest local charitable donations that would help offset their end of year taxes

The Lender or Vendor is shown a prompt asking if they would like to donate the determined amount (or another amount) to a local charity.

At any time, all users are able to donate Branche Loyalty Tokens (BLT) to a local charity.

Each charity that applies to be in the Branche system can choose what percentage of their received donations go directly to them in the form of cash, and what percentage is sent on their behalf to the charity pool.

Charities and not-for-profit organizations can apply to become “charity Vendors”. They will be able to tap into the “charity pools”

What makes the “charity pools” special is that they are used to cover the cost of transaction fees in whole or in part.

Once accessed, a “charity Vendor” can then offer these improved rates, or negate the fees entirely for vulnerable Clients.

This system follows the basic principles of our whole platform: empowering communities, and mutually beneficial transactions.