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Sustainability Climate

Nordea Connect used in campaign to save the Baltic Sea

#OURSEA is a charitable campaign that aims to raise donations and awareness throughout the year to support the ongoing work of cleaning up the heavily polluted Baltic Sea. With the help of a Nordea Connect payment page, donations to #OURSEA can be made fast and easily across the Nordics.
Transaction Banking

Transaction BankingTransaction Banking

08 May, 2020

Nordea Connect is a Nordic online payments platform that directly connects business owners to the full value chain of Nordea’s solutions and advisory services. Find out more about Nordea Connect at nordeaconnect.com.

A part of the 75th anniversary of Finland’s famous Moomins characters, the company behind the illustrations, Moomin Characters Ltd, has teamed up with a Finnish marine culture and conservation charity, the John Nurminen Foundation, to launch #OURSEA. The campaign’s goal is to raise funds to protect the Baltic Sea and its heritage for future generations.

Since their creation in the 1950s by Tove Jansson, the friendly round trolls known as the Moomins have achieved world-wide success and become one of Finland’s most recognisable exports. As the Baltic Sea was an important inspiration for the Moomins, supporting the John Nurminen Foundation’s work was seen as a fitting way to celebrate the important anniversary.

Taking care of the donations

The John Nurminen Foundation works on the greatest and most visible environmental problem facing the Baltic Sea, namely eutrophication, which is caused by an overload of nutrients in the sea. The Foundation focuses on concrete projects that bring measurable results. Alongside its environmental activities, the Foundation also produces rich marine content in multiple channels: books, podcasts, exhibitions, and digital platforms, to engage new audiences and underline the value and stories of the sea. The Foundation focuses on the engagement and interaction between people and the sea to remind us about the value of the sea and why it is the task of our generation to try to save it.

For us, the #OURSEA campaign is a perfect match and in sync with our mission: we are here to save the Baltic Sea and its heritage for future generations.

Annamari Arrakoski-Engardt, Secretary General of the John Nurminen Foundation

200422 Oursea LogoIn co-operation with partners, the Foundation has achieved breakthrough results: a reduction of 75% of phosphorus in the Gulf of Finland alone. All in all, the Foundation has started close to 40 Clean Baltic Sea projects, of which 25 are complete.

“A result of which I am very proud of”, says Annamari Arrakoski-Engardt, Secretary General of the Foundation. “In her art and books, Tove Jansson underlines the beauty and necessity of nature to humans. The sea was her muse. For us, the #OURSEA campaign is a perfect match and in sync with our mission: we are here to save the Baltic Sea and its heritage for future generations.”

The #OURSEA campaign was launched at the International Boat Fair in Helsinki at the start of the year with the goal of raising one million Euros through direct donations from consumers, corporate donations, campaign products and at events.

Nordea’s new Payment Service Provider (PSP) solution Nordea Connect was selected by the campaign in order to make the process of collecting donations to #OURSEA as user-friendly and convenient as possible.

Anne Ridell-Väisänen, Cash Management Adviser at Nordea, says: “Nordea Connect is the only PSP to provide local payment methods throughout Nordics. As this is a Nordic wide campaign, the Foundation was looking for a Nordic partner and we were very happy to offer our new Nordea Connect service to them.”

Nordea Connect is the only PSP to provide local payment methods throughout Nordics. As this is a Nordic wide campaign, the Foundation was looking for a Nordic partner and we were very happy to offer our new Nordea Connect service to them.

Anne Ridell-Väisänen, Cash Management Adviser at Nordea

Spreading the word

Over the course of the year, the #OURSEA campaign will include advertisements across TV, social media and print, designed to encourage Moomins fans to support the project.

200508 Oursea Baltic2Anyone interested in making a donation is asked to visit a special campaign website at oursea.fi which then leads onto a Nordea Connect checkout page for making the actual payment.

Simo Kemppinen, formerly Technical Product Manager for Nordea Connect, now at the Purchasing & Financing Hub, says: “With Nordea Connect’s Nordic presence we can offer local payment types and that’s really helping to make the most of the campaign. When you are able to donate with your everyday chosen payment type, it’s more likely that you will make a donation.”

The #OURSEA website keeps an up to date figure of the total amount of Euros raised in the year so far, as it edges towards the goal of one million.

Anne adds: “It’s really great that you are able to follow the progress of the campaign live online. At the Oursea webpage, you can actually see the donated amount in real time. This information is based on the amount that has been paid via Nordea Connect and the backend capability of the solution makes it possible to directly fetch this data through an API (Application Programme Interface).”

At the Oursea webpage, you can actually see the donated amount in real time. This information is based on the amount that has been paid via Nordea Connect and the backend capability of the solution makes it possible to directly fetch this data through an API.

Anne Ridell-Väisänen, Cash Management Adviser at Nordea

Erkki Salo, John Nurminen Foundation’s Fundraising Director, has been pleased with Nordea Connect: “We were looking for a versatile donation platform for our campaign page, serving donors from different countries with preferably localised donation methods. The requirement was that the donation platform had to be easily integrated and tested with our campaign page.”

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“As part of our requirements, we also wanted to identify which donations were domestic and which were international. Nordea Connect offered readily available integrated donation methods for different Nordic Countries (such as Swish for Sweden and MobilePay for Finland). In addition, for credit card payments it offered integration with Nets, which is the main donation method for donations outside Europe.”

“Nordea Connect has been working well and has proved to be reliable  – we have had zero customer questions or technical problems. We have also found Nordea Connects’s reporting tools very useful, as they help us to follow well the campaign results per donation methods,” adds Erkki.

See how it works

For now, the hope is that by making it easier for people to donate and keep track of how the campaign is going, Nordea Connect will prove to be an important supporting part of the #OURSEA initiative.

Anne concludes: “It’s great that Nordea’s new PSP offering is able to support this very important project. If anyone is interested in donating to a worthwhile cause, they are very welcome to visit oursea.fi”

Check out the #OURSEA campaign site at oursea.fi to read more about the project or to make a donation via Nordea Connect.

For more information about Nordea Connect check out nordeaconnect.com.

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