With one million displaced, Lebanon turns to digital wallets for aid

icegreentea2

Seems there are two parallel developments here: a) Rise of alternate forms of organizing trust. People distrust government or other organizations, and turn to alternative forms of organization and trust. b) Rise of digital wallet/transfer systems that are fundamentally about charging for throughput/withdrawals. The article mentions that banks are restricting withdraws - presumably because banks need deposits to stay liquid. Whish on the other hand doesn't care - it makes money as a % of each transaction.

ahhhhnoooo

Headline really deploying passive voice here. Israel's invasion and wide bombings of Lebanon is what has displaced a million people.

tokai

Hasn't Hawala been a thing in Lebanon for hundreds of years? It doesn't seem like a novel development at all, besides the digital tools. Informal money transfer systems are not new thing challenging the banks at all. The banks are the new thing here.

derelicta

Damn I wonder why they are displaced. No one to blame for sure.

spwa4

Since most people won't know: the reason this crisis is developing is because of how hezbollah behaved last time. These people are Syrian immigrants (largely), pretend to be Shi'a muslims (but aren't), and have moved to Southern Libanon, decades ago, throwing out (and worse) the original (Christian) population, because they were paid to do so. Then in the last war they ran away from the south, to avoid fighting, and they were largely welcomed into Beirut, especially southern Beirut, many taken in by Christians and Sunni (partially because they had money and Lebanon was in a deep crisis). Then a lot of them never left, threw the people who had taken them in out of their own homes. They simply stole the apartments of people who took them in, then chased inhabitants out of entire blocks. This time, neighbors sometimes literally attack anybody tries to help these people, and chase the refugees away, for fear of a repeat. The result is, of course, a deep typical middle eastern crisis. Deep misery. Money is deeply involved, corruption is everywhere. Nobody, especially not the people who are now in deep trouble, are innocent. And there is no real solution, nor is anybody interested in providing a solution. Iran's islamist regime is directly responsible for this crisis, through giving these people money and weapons, but of course they are not available to resolve anything (and that's NOT because the US is attacking them, yes that's a problem, but it's not like they would help anyone if they were doing fine)