Since the start of Israeli military operations in Beirut and the ongoing occupation of southern Lebanon this March, more than one million people have been forced to flee their homes. Displaced families are either staying with extended relatives, renting temporary accommodation if they can afford it, or sleeping in vehicles and out in the open—all putting massive additional strain on Lebanon’s already fragile public infrastructure. According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 130,000 displaced people have also crossed into Syria, the vast majority of whom are in critical need of food, direct cash assistance, and safe shelter.

As humanitarian needs skyrocket across the country, so too has the volume of financial support flowing in from abroad. But much of this assistance does not move through traditional, formal aid channels. Instead, funds are routed via digital fintech platforms to trusted local contacts on the ground, who either purchase essential goods for displaced communities or distribute cash directly to vulnerable households.

There is currently no real-time public dataset tracking donations specifically tied to the current conflict. However, remittance flows—the closest available proxy for this giving—provide key context. Per 2023 data from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Lebanon receives roughly $6 billion to $7 billion in annual cross-border remittances, a sum equal to roughly one-third of the country’s total GDP.

The UNDP reports that average remittance fees in Lebanon hover around 11%, well above the global average. While crisis periods typically see these flows shift toward emergency support, what sets the current moment apart is how money moves: an increasing share is sent instantly, directly between individuals, via digital wallet services.

“These informal inflows are captured by the formal BDL [Banque du Liban] figures and constitute around 70 percent of the inflows during the crisis,” the UNDP added, noting that money is also often carried into the country as cash by traveling individuals.

From Gift Cards to Financial Infrastructure

As a Lebanese person myself, my social media feeds have been flooded with former colleagues and friends launching their own personal fundraising channels, sharing photos of purchase receipts, and updating followers on exactly how donated funds are being used.

One grassroots campaign run by Lebanese lawyer Jad Essayli raised $65,125 in just 10 days, entirely through social media outreach and digital transfers. When asked which platforms have delivered the biggest impact, Essayli and other local fundraisers repeatedly name Whish Money, though a range of other services including PayPal, Zelle, and Venmo are also widely used.

Originally launched to digitize gift cards, the company has evolved into a broad financial platform offering remittances, peer-to-peer transfers, and payment services, with more than 2 million users across 110 countries. “We started off from the fact that we wanted to disrupt the distribution of gift cards,” says Toufic Koussa, cofounder and chairman of Whish Money. He describes how the company built an early wallet system in 2007 that allowed retailers to issue digital cards on demand, and over time, that infrastructure expanded into a full financial ecosystem.

When Banks Stop Working

The company’s core focus has long been the unbanked and underbanked—people with limited or no reliable access to traditional banking. These groups became the company’s core audience during Lebanon’s national financial collapse. Globally, 1.4 billion people remain unbanked; the World Bank cites access to affordable financial services as being “critical for poverty reduction and economic growth.”

In Lebanon, as traditional banks froze customer deposits and restricted cash withdrawals, platforms like Whish Money filled a critical gap, enabling people to move and access money entirely outside the failing formal system.

That pre-existing infrastructure now shapes how aid moves during the current crisis. Money from family abroad, the Lebanese diaspora, or grassroots campaigns lands straight in a digital wallet and can be spent immediately. On Whish Money, peer-to-peer transfers are the most popular transaction type, followed by international remittances. Koussa also notes that Whish Money is uniquely connected to U.S. banking infrastructure, allowing users to link accounts held abroad directly to wallets in Lebanon.

Mass displacement has reshaped how people use these platforms. While overall growth remains steady, transaction patterns have shifted dramatically. Families are making larger purchases, stocking up on essentials as uncertainty grows. Grocery bills that might have been $200 before the conflict are now climbing as people prepare for the worst, Koussa says.

There has also been a noticeable increase in the volume of money coming from abroad. “Yes, there is an increase,” he says, attributing it partly to seasonal giving around Ramadan and Eid, but also to “people wanting to donate” to support those affected by the war.

Informal Networks

Much of this emergency aid is organized informally. Social media influencers and grassroots organizers act as intermediaries, collecting funds from abroad and distributing them locally. “We have seen an increase also because there are many influencers promoting themselves as the right people to actually donate to,” he says. This bottom-up system mirrors 2024, when Lebanon was also under attack by Israel. “It wasn’t the government, it wasn’t the [institutional] donors, it was personal initiatives here and there that actually made people not starve to death.”

A January 2025 study by the Economic Research Forum found that trust in Lebanese public institutions has deteriorated sharply, with the exception of the country’s armed forces. “As for trust in the government, it is unambiguously lower in 2024 compared with 2013 and 2016,” the report noted. “A similar pattern is depicted for parliament, similarly with a significant decline since 2016.”

When asked whether these efforts are coordinated through fintech platforms like Whish Money, Koussa’s answer is unequivocal: “100 percent.”

Despite the urgency of the crisis, these flows are not unregulated. “It does go through the monitoring process and the [anti-money laundering] checks,” he stresses, noting that recipients are vetted and full due diligence is conducted. The core challenge is balancing speed and accessibility for people in crisis with the safeguards required in cross-border financial systems.

This shift toward informal digital giving is not without risk. In countries like the United Arab Emirates, fundraising without a license—even through social media—is a criminal offense. In Lebanon, digital donations operate in a far looser regulatory gray zone, shaped more by existing anti-money-laundering rules than a dedicated formal fundraising framework.

What Comes After Banks

At the core of this shift is trust. With faith in Lebanon’s traditional banking system shattered, digital platforms are filling both a practical and psychological void. “I think nowadays it will boil down to trust. Trust is the new currency,” Koussa says.

For the more than 1 million people displaced inside Lebanon, this trust is not abstract. It determines whether money sent from abroad arrives safely, quickly, and in a form that can be used immediately to meet urgent, life-saving needs.

“We’re fighting a system that has ruled the world for the last 400 years,” he says. When asked whether he thinks they will win, he projects clear confidence. “Retail banking, the way we used to know it, I think it’s done. Banks will become pipelines; the real innovation in money and inclusion is happening in fintech.”

This story originally appeared on WIRED Middle East.