Payment Instrument Tracking is a solution that enables WFP to track the end-to-end process of card and food distribution and verifies recipients’ identity in the process. The application simplifies card distribution, which optimizes resources, halves the average distribution time, saving significant resources, and reduces and clerical errors. By using the tool WFP staff can verify people’s identities, ensuring payment cards are delivered to the right people.
Cash is one of the most effective ways for the WFP to help families fight hunger, malnutrition and improve their food security. Where markets and financial sectors are functioning, putting money directly into people’s hands, particularly women, helps people buy what they need and may be a starting point for digital financial inclusion. In 2024, WFP provided over 2 million people, including 1.39 million refugees, with food and cash-based transfers to address food insecurity and malnutrition. The tracking of payment cards and verification of people’s identity is an important process for WFP to ensure transfers are arriving to the intended people.
WFP operations often rely on manual processes to perform card distributions and verify people's identities. This results in the use of paper forms and Excel spreadsheets which pose two key problems for field operations: operational inefficiencies during payment card distribution causing long waiting lines for people and cash assurance gaps caused by manual process data entry errors, operational delays and possible divergence of digital money.
Driven by core operational challenges on the ground, Payment Instrument Tracking replaces manual card distributions and identity verifications, enabling WFP to provide a better experience to the people we serve through simple and secure card distributions.
The application operates on Android devices that can be adapted to different contextual needs with a user-friendly web application that allows the detailed tracking of payment cards and easy generation of reports.
The two-part system has a mobile application component that operates on Android devices and can be adapted to different contextual needs for beneficiary verification at payment card distribution points. A user-friendly web application allows for detailed tracking of payment cards and easy generation of reports.
Payment Instrument Tracking is now active in 28 country offices, where it manages the digital issuance and oversight of assistance cards that reach 7.5 million people. Payment Instrument Tracking is working to optimize the architecture to accommodate more data points allowing it to scale its operations globally.
