WIPAY Jamaica is bringing in more digital money options, with the latest option being an untransferable, unique QR code identifier embedded with digital fiat (digital money).

WiPay, the Caribbean’s leading fintech company, has unveiled this new digital payment option with the launch of its WiCare Digitial Grant Initiative in partnership with St Elizabeth South Western Member of Parliament, Floyd Green. The initiative was launched last Monday at Intown Supersave Supermarket located in Black River, St Elizabeth.

Some 100 health-care front line workers from Black River Hospital are to benefit, with each of them receiving $7,500 from WiPay’s Regional Digital Payments Transformation Fund. WiPay has demonstrated how grants and payments can be distributed effectively by using digital technology and without physically handing out cash.

Recipients of the grant will each receive a QR code via text message, WhatsApp or email. The recipient is then required to visit any participating redemption centre at Intown Supersave Supermarket, Lashings, Jakes, Frenchmen, Petcom or 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 WiPay smart terminals installed at the participating locations.

The smart terminal scans the code and verifies the recipient’s name and balance on the QR code, which information is then registered as a cash payment towards a bill. WiPay Jamaica Country Manager Kibwe McGann said the system is much different than the cashless farmers’ market initiative, which was rolled out last year in conjunction with the agriculture ministry then headed by Green, who resigned last month.

He explained that with the cashless farmers’ market system, shoppers would buy credit that would be added to a QR Code which would then be used for shopping. With the WiCare Digital Grant Initiative, McGann explained that beneficiaries would have their cash grant preloaded onto a QR Code. This grant benefit will not be transferable and will be limited to only the designated beneficiary — no one else.

The second phase is the rolling out of the Digital Payments Transformation Fund, which has received contribution from the YELLO Media Group and Jamaica Money Market Brokers. Five thousand dollars in grants would be given to some 400 beneficiaries.

The Digital Payments Transformation Fund has been accessed by Food For the Poor and The Bounty Foundation, which will see an additional US$15,000 [$2.3 million) 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 supermarket group, which will see the expansion of the initiative islandwide through the onboarding of 28 additional supermarkets. So far, over US$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:

• RADA 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).

The WiPay Jamaica country manager argued that given the fact that cash has been labelled as a superspreader for the novel coronavirus, the company was forced into action, as the Caribbean’s leader in financial technology, to develop a solution that removed cash from the system. This is in addition to providing financial inclusion to the underbanked and unbanked.