Case Study: Diaconia achieves precise customer addresses and significant time savings with what3words

3 words to help the unbanked with Diaconia

Diaconia, the Liberian arm of microfinance group Alliance Microfinance AS (AMAS), struggled to serve customers because most households had no formal addresses — directions were given as landmarks and hand-drawn maps, making client verification, lending decisions and field visits slow, error-prone and hard to scale.

Diaconia deployed the what3words addressing app on inexpensive Android phones so staff can capture and save each customer’s unique 3‑word location, view it on a map and navigate there (including via offline-enabled apps). This eliminated hand-drawn maps, cut at least 30 minutes per client, improved route planning and record-keeping, and made field operations faster, more reliable and easier to scale.

Diaconia

Hugh Sinclair

Chief Operating Officer