The Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), launched in 2008, with an annual budget of $1.15 billion, is the largest and most systematic social protection initiative ever implemented in Pakistan. Targeted exclusively towards 5.6 million poor women, the success of the programme lies more in its adoption to ever changing payment disbursement mechanisms as efficient and transparent manner as possible.
Within a span of 10 years, BISP has managed to try out four payment mechanisms, with the intention to ensure that the social protection programme results in the desired impacts, ie enhancing the financial capacity of the poor, including the financial independence of women, reduce poverty and ensure equitable distribution of wealth, ensuring basic level of sustenance to the poorest to enable them to consume the minimum caloric intake per day.
For purposes of efficient delivery of the programme, BISP has employed several payment mechanisms, incorporating learnings from one to the next. Starting with postal delivery of cash, dabbling in disbursements through mobile wallets, withdrawal from ATMs through a Beneficiary Disbursement Card (BDC) to the latest, Biometric Verification Systems (BVS) based withdrawal at branchless banking agent touchpoints, in each instance, the focus has been to ensure that the entire cash grant reaches the intended - the beneficiary, or the poorest woman herself.-PR