Low connectivity across Africa has historically been an issue for paying social grants leaving the poorest of the poor even more vulnerable in deep rural areas. Paycode’s technology has managed to overcome this barrier. 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.

Recently, Johannesburg-based fintech company Paycode, together with its local partners, Paycode Mozambique and INAS, the country’s national social services agency, successfully created a biometric identity for 18 000 of Mozambique’s most vulnerable citizens in deep rural areas to facilitate the payment of social grants. Last week those efforts paid off when 4×4 cash trucks started driving from village to village distributing cash payments for social grants.

Rob Bakker, the Project Manager for INAS’s social grants program commented, “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.”

“Our focus is enabling financial inclusion through innovative technology that really works, even in the world’s most remote places,” says Paycode CEO, Ralph Pecker.

The company is positioned to access the world’s least developed markets and open up the world’s financial system to everyone. Paycode services both private and governmental contracts across Africa and specialises 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. Paycode’s technology is currently being used to pay over four million Africans their government salaries, social grants, pensions and agriculture loans.