·      100 Health Care Frontline workers from Black River Hospital among the first beneficiaries

WiPay Jamaica has launched the first part of its WiCare Digital Grant Initiative in partnership with Member of Parliament for St. Elizabeth South Western, Floyd Green.

Under the programme, which was launched at INTOWN Supermarket in Black River, St. Elizabeth, 100 Health Care Frontline workers from Black River Hospital will each receive $7,500 from WiPay’s Regional Digital Payments Transformation Fund. WiPay, demonstrated how grants and payments could be distributed effectively without physically handing out cash and by using digital technology. 

“Cash has been labelled as a superspreader for the Covid-19 virus. So as the Caribbean’s leader in Financial Technology, we challenge ourselves to develop a solution that removed cash from the system, and one that was accessible to the underbanked and unbanked. Because not everyone has a bank account, WiPay developed the solution to be accessible from their mobile devices,” explained Kibwe McGann, Country Manager of WiPay. 

How the programme works

Recipients of the grant will each receive a QR code, via text message, WhatsApp or email. The recipient then goes to any of the participating redemption centres in Black River at INTOWN Supercentre, Lashings, Jakes, Frenchmen, Petcom, and Cawleys Pharmacy. 

Beneficiaries are able to shop and pay for services using the QR Code. Each QR Code is a unique identifier that can only be scanned by a WiPay Smart Terminal which has been installed at the participating locations.

The smart terminal scans the code, verifies the recipient’s name and balance on the QR code, which is then registered as a cash payment towards a bill. Other Jamaican partners who have contributed to the Fund are YELLO Media Group and JMMB. 

More on Digital Payments Transformation Fund

The Digital Payments Transformation Fund has also been accessed by Food For The Poor and The Bounty Foundation, which will see an additional US$15,000  [J$2.3 Million) being drawn down from the fund and distributed to those identified as most in need using the same QR Code digital payment technology developed by WiPay.

Over the next two weeks, additional grant recipients will be identified by the foundations and the grants dispersed by text message and WhatsApp. This next stage will be launched in partnership with The Progressive Group, which will see the expansion of the Initiative islandwide through the onboarding of 28 additional supermarkets islandwide.

So far, over USD$860,000 has been accessed from WiPay’s Digital Transformation Fund over the last two years. The total value of the fund is US$1 million, which was activated shortly after the pandemic began to take its toll on Caribbean nations.

This is part of WiPay’s Corporate Responsibility Initiative #WiCare.  Trinidad and Grenada are the only other two Caribbean countries to have accessed the Fund so far. Jamaica has accessed the fund several times through the following projects:

• R.A.D.A Cashless Farmers Market
• Development of v1. E.N.D.S (eCommerce National Delivery Service)
• Project 1000 (the gifting of 1000 free eCommerce websites to SMEs)