800,000 Biometric ID's Facilitate Development Schemes in Pakistan

Revolution on the cards (Dawn)

At first the government distributed the money through the Pakistan Post Office, the only system viable and available at the time the programme was implemented. Surprisingly, there was remarkably little abuse of the system thanks to the targeting and safeguards implemented into the scheme with the use of the poverty scorecard.

Plans are now under way to shift from using the post system to making transfers by electronic debit card or smart card into a bank account held by the women (transfers by cellphone had also been considered); the electronic debit card is biometric, tied to the owner’s thumbprint so that nobody but the legal holder of the card can use it.

So far 800,000 hold this biometric debit card and by the end of 2012, this number will go up to four million women.

Biometrics are really taking off among global development types.