A bulk disbursement is a bulk (batch) payment seen from the point of view of an organization paying money out: one payer distributes funds to many recipients in a single run. The phrase is used most by governments, employers, lenders, insurers and aid agencies, and by the banks and mobile money operators that serve them.
Typical cases are salary and pension runs, social benefit and subsidy payments, student stipends, loan proceeds paid by a microfinance lender, insurance claims and cash transfers by humanitarian organizations. In countries where many recipients have no bank account, bulk disbursements are frequently made to mobile money wallets: the payer funds an account with the operator and uploads a list of phone numbers and amounts, and each wallet is credited within moments. Government payments made this way are a major tool of financial inclusion policy.
The word disbursement stresses the purpose, paying out funds that recipients are owed or entitled to, while "batch" describes how the instructions are grouped and processed. The technical steps, covered in the main entry, are the same: a file or request is validated, approved, funded and executed, and the results are reconciled. Commercial platforms tend to call the same thing a batch payout.