Charitable move for Bartercard
GOLD Coast trading exchange network Bartercard may be about to have a hand in creating a global charity for the charities sector.
New owner Tony Wiese recently returned from a US meeting with the treasury department of World Vision and donor-advised fund TrustBridge Global.
The meeting was brokered by Paul Bolte, a former CEO of Bartercard NZ, who is now a senior executive at TrustBridge.
Mr Wiese told BB that TrustBridge and World Vision were collaborating on creating a “true global treasury system” for charities.
“Charities have a huge problem moving funds around from first-world countries to third-world countries because of anti-terrorism laws,” he said.
“World Vision has been doing that for many years. It has a desire to assist and share its expertise with the world to help other charities move their funds.”
According to its website, TrustBridge is a “Swiss donor-advised fund platform that provides cross-border grant making to donors who wish to support charities and foundations anywhere around the world”.
Mr Wiese said Mr Bolte thought of Bartercard’s system when exploring software options to help implement the global treasury idea.
“They are looking at using our Bartercard software for tracking funds via a virtual digital means,” he said.
“We are not a bank, they (World Vision and TrustBridge) will still supply the cash, but … instead of these charities doing thousands of transactions, they will just do one a month. But they still need to get the funds there and we will then keep the score of all these movements.
“Instead of sending physical cash of $200,000 from Germany, say, for example, to South Sudan, we will transfer the money through the Bartercard system.
“The physical cash does not need to move because there is already a float in South Sudan that essentially backs up the transactions.”
Mr Wiese said the use of the Bartercard software was no “done deal” but World Vision and TrustBridge had proved receptive).