JOHANNESBURG - Johannesburg-based digital financial services company Paycode said on Tuesday it had successfully created a biometric identity for 18,000 of Mozambique’s most vulnerable citizens in rural areas to facilitate the payment of social grants.
Low connectivity across Africa has historically been an issue for paying government grants to the continent's poorest people, many of whom live in isolated rural areas.
"Paycode’s technology has managed to overcome this barrier," the company said in a statement.
"This technology works in places where there is no phone or internet connectivity at all, so that citizens can still get paid their social grants or pensions, make a payment or withdraw cash offline in real-time. "
It said its efforts in Mozambique, together with local partners Paycode Mozambique and the country’s national social services agency INAS, had resulted in cash trucks starting to drive from village to village last week distributing payments to beneficiaries.
"The combination of biometric authentication and the ability to make payments offline in real time is a winning solution which meets all the criteria for successfully paying social grants in remote locations," said Rob Bakker, the project manager for INAS’s social grants program.
Paycode has successfully created a biometric identity for 18,000 of Mozambique’s most vulnerable citizens in rural areas to facilitate the payment of social grants. PHOTOS: Supplied
Paycode chief executive Ralph Pecker said the company's focus was on enabling financial inclusion through innovative technology even in the world’s most remote places.
Paycode services both private and governmental contracts across Africa, specialising in payment technologies using biometric identity cards that provide digital banking offline in real time at a fraction of the cost of traditional bank accounts.
Its technology is currently being used to pay over four million Africans their government salaries, social grants, pensions and agriculture loans.