Visa, the retail electronic payments network, has partnered with United Bank Limited (UBL) of Pakistan and local Pakistani government agencies to distribute relief funds to the internally displaced persons (IDPs) of Northwest Pakistan.
The company has said that the Pakistani program was initiated by NADRA, Pakistan’s governmental identification agency, which tasked Visa with developing a system to distribute aid, as well as support NADRA’s efforts to authenticate identities of those IDPs in need of aid.
The company claimed that as a result of the program, approximately 300,000 Visa-branded prepaid debit cards have been provided to IDPs in Pakistan to date. In total, an estimated 1.5 million IDPs are expected to benefit from the distribution of the aid cards.
Additionally, UBL and Visa have worked together to expand card acceptance in the Pakistan market, and will be installing approximately 450 mobile point-of-sale terminals in local merchant locations across the country, enabling IDPs to use their Visa prepaid cards for essential purchases.
Elizabeth Buse, global head of product, Visa, said: “By distributing benefits funds electronically via Visa-branded products in Pakistan, the government is also achieving greater transparency, reducing costs, and increasing financial inclusion by linking participants to the banking system, often for the first time.”
