Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) | June 26, 2020

BanQu Uses the Private Sector to Make Social Change

Learn how BanQu solves business problems, increases company sustainability, and accelerates social change for people in poverty.

BanQu’s CEO, Ashish Gadnis, is excited to share the very first transaction made by the software in Zambia for AB InBev. He notes that BanQu easily helps big brand companies drive category sales, and even make 15% more through supply chain transparency – all while doing some good in the world. The Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) described the important moment this way:

On a trip to Zambia in 2018, Katie Hoard, Anheuser-Busch InBev’s (AB InBev’s) global director of agricultural innovation, remembers watching a smallholder farmer named Agnes receive a series of text messages: a receipt for her cassava sale, confirmation of payment to her mobile money account, and notification that her solar power bill could be paid from the funds now in her mobile money wallet.

The article goes on to discuss other BanQu partners, like Japan Tobacco International and Chameleon Cold Brew. The biggest takeaway is how BanQu software can make sweeping and rapid change – using business to solve global problems:

While efforts to reduce poverty and address human rights abuses have traditionally been led by foundations, nonprofits, and international development institutions, Gadnis believes that private sector supply chains offer the scale and speed needed to reach millions of poor and disenfranchised people.