Idemia to power African welfare payments transfer system

The project is based on biometrics capture of recipients, undertaken by Idemia. Work got underway in 2019 when the France-based company offered a much cheaper way to register potential recipients. The scheme covers 240,000 households consisting 1.5 million people, of whom almost a million have been identified as living in extreme poverty, as reported by biometricupdate.com.

Payments will be made by the state to people’s mobile phones on the MTN network, with a SIM card provided to each household. Japan and India have agreed to cooperate to help developing countries build digital platforms to help governments make their services available online, reports the Nikkei Asian Review.