As human needs increase, so does the flow of money from abroad. Yet much of this support is not going through traditional aid channels. Instead, it is being delivered through digital fintech platforms to trusted individuals at the ground level, who purchase essential commodities or distribute funds directly to the displaced.
There is no real-time dataset specifically capturing war-related donations. However, dispatch – the nearest available proxy – provides the context. According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in 2023, Lebanon receives approximately $6 billion to $7 billion annually from foreign countries, equivalent to about a third of its GDP.
UNDP reported that remittance costs there average 11 percent, which is higher than the global average. In times of crisis, these flows often shift towards emergency aid. What’s different now is how money moves: increasingly, it is being sent instantly, peer-to-peer, via digital wallets.
“These informal flows are captured by formal BDL statistics and constitute about 70 percent of flows during the crisis,” UNDP said. Given that money is also often sent in the form of cash with people traveling to the country.
From gift cards to financial infrastructure
Being Lebanese myself, my social media feed is filled with former colleagues and friends setting up their own channels to receive donations, sharing photos of receipts and showing where the money is going.
A grassroots campaign run by Lebanese lawyer Jad Essaily raised $65,125 in 10 days, entirely through social media and digital transfers. When asked which platform has been most influential, he and other fundraisers pointed to Wish Money, although several other platforms are also being used, including PayPal, Zelle, and Venmo.
Originally launched to digitize gift cards, the company has grown into a comprehensive financial platform providing remittances, peer-to-peer transfers and payment services with more than 2 million users in 110 countries. “We started with the fact that we wanted to disrupt the distribution of gift cards,” says Toufic Koussa, co-founder and president of Wish Money. He described how the company created an early wallet system in 2007 that allowed retailers to issue digital cards on demand. Over time, that infrastructure expanded into a complete financial ecosystem.
When banks stop working
The company’s main focus has been on the unbanked and underbanked – those who have limited or unreliable access to traditional banking. Those groups became central during Lebanon’s financial collapse. Globally, 1.4 billion people are unbanked; The World Bank describes access to affordable financial services as “crucial for poverty reduction and economic growth”.
In Lebanon, as banks froze deposits and banned withdrawals, platforms like Wish Money filled a critical gap, enabling people to transfer and use money outside the traditional system.
That infrastructure now shapes how aid proceeds in crises. Money from family, diaspora, or grassroots campaigns comes directly into the digital wallet and can be spent immediately. On Wish Money, peer-to-peer transfers are the most popular, followed by international remittances. Koussa also noted that Whish Money is uniquely tied to US banking infrastructure, allowing users to link accounts abroad directly to wallets in Lebanon.
Displacement is changing how people use these platforms. Overall growth is steady, but transaction patterns have changed. As uncertainty increases, families are making big purchases, stocking up on essential items. Kusa says grocery bills that might have been $200 are now rising as people prepare for the worst.
<a href