Everybody is a winner with Ethecol
Wouldn’t it be a good idea if every time you used your credit or debit card you made the world a slightly better place?
Now you can do just that by using Ethecol Merchant Services – which is a totally new kind of credit and debit card service launched last month.
“As a nation we were set to spend around £480 million on souvenirs and parties to celebrate the Royal Wedding. If Ethecol had provided the chip and pin for those transactions we could have generated over £5 million for British charities,” said social entrepreneur Robert Ashton, who is Managing Director of Ethecol. “Or to look at it in another way, greedy banks possibly made more than £5 million out of those transactions.”
Ethecol is a social enterprise which is happy to work for a ‘salary and not a fortune’ and to contribute to the charities which recommend their services.
“Ethecol is structured whereby we’re able to pay charities a commission on every transaction,” explained Mr Ashton, who is also the author of the best selling business guide How to be a Social Entrepreneur.
“Ethecol earns commission on the chip & pin terminals supplied to traders and gives half of its profits to the charities involved. So everybody is a winner! The trader pays less, the customer pays less and the charities get more!” he said.
Ethecol Merchant Services signed up the 255 strong Plunkett Community Shop Network earlier last month and recently announced a deal with the Norfolk Community Foundation.
Norfolk Community Foundation (NCF) distributes more than £1 million in grants to a range of Norfolk charities and community organisations. The collaboration with Ethecol could earn the Foundation £50,000 per annum if just 200 businesses supporting them sign up.
Ethecol’s business model is simple. A charity or membership organisation signs up with Ethecol for their chip and pin services, then introduces its members and supporters. They get a better deal by switching their accounts to Ethecol and the introducing organisation gets the commission normally pocketed by the introducer. That means that each member’s turnover contributes financially to the charity organisation.
Mr Ashton said that he expected at least 50 other Charity Foundations to follow NCF and revealed that he was already in discussion with three others.
“Because the charities we support make the introductions we don’t have to invest in an expensive sales force,” explained Robert Ashton. “Increasingly our customers choose Ethecol because of what we do, not what we pay expensive advertising agencies to say we do!”