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Good practice Imported

Ehsaas Emergency Cash — Biometric Cashpoints Removing the PIN Barrier for Low-Literacy Women in Pakistan

Pakistan · Islamabad · See the Pakistan profile · See the Islamabad profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 24% 92/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Facing evidence that low-literacy women struggle with PIN-based ATMs, Pakistan's Ehsaas Emergency Cash paid COVID-19 stipends via fingerprint-only biometric cashpoints instead, reaching ~15 million households, with ~54% of payments going directly to women.

~15 million households (~100M people)
Households reached
~53.96 %
Payments made directly to women
4.526 million women
Women in Kafaalat registry receiving guaranteed payments
12,000 PKR (~$75)
Stipend amount
27.76 %
Poor women owning a mobile phone (2020)
74.13 %
Poor men owning a mobile phone (2020)
3rd rank
Global ranking by population coverage among COVID-19 cash-transfer programmes

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) / Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Division
Period
2020–ongoing
Keywords
social protection, financial inclusion, biometric identification, cash transfers

Context

When Pakistan launched the Ehsaas Emergency Cash programme in April 2020 to cushion the COVID-19 shock, programme designers had to reckon with documented evidence that women with low literacy and numeracy find PIN- and debit-card-based ATMs difficult to operate.

Activities

The programme disbursed the PKR 12,000 (~$75) stipend exclusively through biometrically-enabled cashpoints — fingerprint verification at ATMs, retail shops and payment camps — removing the need for a PIN, card or reading a screen, while requiring the registered woman herself, rather than a male relative, to appear in person.

Results

The World Bank documented that around 53.96% of payments were made directly to women, with 4.526 million women in the existing Kafaalat registry receiving guaranteed payments, ranking Ehsaas Emergency Cash third globally by population coverage among COVID-19 cash-transfer programmes, reaching roughly 15 million households (~100 million people).

Conclusions

Independent analysis by the Center for Global Development found that because eligibility still depended on owning a mobile phone and national ID, and only 27.76% of poor women (versus 74.13% of poor men) owned a phone, the biometric design solved the literacy barrier but not the underlying ownership gap — CGD estimated up to 78% of poor women could be excluded from any future, non-registry-based expansion of a similar model.

Implementation
Indicative cost
High (€500k–€5M)
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years)
Staffing & skills
Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) / Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety Division

Conditions for success

  • Fingerprint-only biometric verification removing PIN/card/literacy barriers
  • Requirement that the registered woman herself appear in person to collect funds

Common failure modes

  • Eligibility still depended on mobile-phone and national-ID ownership, with poor women far less likely to own a phone
  • CGD estimates up to 78% of poor women could be excluded from a future non-registry-based expansion

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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