Diaspora Link remittance project set to go

Prof. Bengt Henoch urged the association to help in the promotion exercise which for which preparations should be made now. He said he was aware of the problems of getting people with visa cards in Africa and that DLink could find some people in Africa but for the pilot project, it was necessary that those taking part should find those names and accounts. These would be confidentially held and DSL will not even know what they are. The diaspora association should also find agents in the receiver countries who should be compensated accordingly. He said DLink would first offer transfers visa to visa regardless of bank but starting with Swedbank. The project would later be expanded to all banks.

Ms Gunhild Svann, Senior Manager at Swedbank, explained the role of the bank in the exercise. She said transfers could be made from any bank to any other bank but for the pilot project, Swedbank would open 22 accounts in the names of the participants in the pilot project. The bank would deposit money into these accounts which would remain the property of the bank. Swedbank would also provide each of the pilot members with a visa card with his or her name embossed on it that will be used for the pilot project. She couldn’t bring the cards because it took two weeks to produce them. The accounts will be closed after the pilot project and the cards collected. On the question of the difficulty of having visa accounts in Ghana, Ms Svahn said when the project proper started, it should be possible to transfer money to the rural banks who would distribute them to individual recipients.

Quang then explained the activities to be performed during the pilot project. It was mostly a recap of what he had explained at the previous meeting and described in detail in the manual that had been sent out to all members. He talked of a three-pronged strategy: role of agents, feedback and the development of promotional activities.

He said there would be basically two processes – those of agents and receivers. The registration of agents would involve three activities – information, checking and registration. Everybody would be an agent who would be registered by Micah to start with. Those so registered would in turn register others. For the pilot project, we would be both senders and receivers. People will work in groups of four to test the system by sending money to each other through the DSL. The process is well detailed in the registration manual which Quang urged everyone to read in detail. He also distributed an “Activity Description” manual which detailed stepwise the procedure he described. It also has a do-to list and a check list that will ensure that all steps are properly understood and followed. He said all agents, senders as well as receivers, must be over 18, a condition that he had forgotten to include in the first manual.  

The transaction fees were also made known. This can be easily calculated by adding 1%, 0.75% and 0.65% for amounts below 400, 400-1000 and above 1000 respectively to two units of the currency being transferred. Examples are provided in the Activity Manual.

The meeting also discussed several issues that were worrying members and the visitors did their best to explain things. Any participant who still had questions can contact Micah or Quang Luong at quang@diasporalink.net or on 0739536749.

Kofi Sapathy

Visit the DSL site http://diasporalink.net/