Swiftaid service launches to boost Gift Aid collection on contactless donations
Melanie May | 11 February 2019 | News
A service that automates the collection of Gift Aid from contactless donations has launched.
Swiftaid, developed by Streeva in partnership with the University of Surrey, has been created as a solution to the difficulty of capturing the information necessary to fill in Gift Aid claims when people give a digital donation. Currently rolling out for contactless donations, Streeva is also working with the industry to next automate Gift Aid on SMS, online and Direct Debit with, according to Streeva, Swiftaid the first solution to automate Gift Aid on contactless donations approved by HMRC.
Charities
Charities need to set up an account with Swiftaid and assign it as a Gift Aid nominee with HMRC so it can claim Gift Aid on their behalf. The service also enables charities to thank anonymous donors, and handles all responsibility for compliance, and admin, including record keeping and auditing for HMRC. Swiftaid doesn’t share donors’ personal information with charities but does enable the sending of thank you notes and updates to anonymous donors.
Streeva charges charities a 15% service fee on the Gift Aid it processes for them. In return, it takes care of the entire Gift Aid claiming process by generating declarations, claims, and all reports required by HMRC.
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Donors
Donors must first register their card with Swiftaid so giving their consent for contactless donations to be Gift Aided, and then when they make a contactless donation, the technology uses the data from this donation to automatically make a claim. Donors only need to sign up once for Swiftaid to claim Gift Aid on their behalf on all future supported donations made to any of the supported charities, and remain anonymous by default with the service with end of year tax reporting done automatically.
Streeva is also enabling account linking through Open Banking, so UK taxpayers will be able to link their account and back claim donations made up to four years ago.
The University’s Centre for Cyber Security is helping to validate the technology and processes used by Streeva. It is creating two academic papers: one on its use of Blockchain technology, which it uses to help ensure the security and accountability of the Swiftaid service, and another on how Streeva combines its payment messaging technology with Blockchain to automate other existing tax law processes linked to digital payments.
Professor Steve Schneider, Director of the Surrey Centre for Cyber Security at the University of Surrey, said:
“It’s a great opportunity for the charity sector to take full advantage of this new technology in this fast-moving digital age, and we believe that the intuitive nature of Swiftaid will make electronic Gift Aid donations seamless for the user.”
Beth Michael, Co-founder of Streeva, added:
“It is our mission with Swiftaid to make giving through Gift Aid an effortless experience, getting more money to charities without costing donors more.”
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.