Helping relieve economic hardship in Spain

When COVID-19 struck and pandemic-related restrictions went into effect, Spanish individuals who depended on social benefits were at risk of being cut off from the funds they needed to buy food and other essentials.

Action

• Visa partnered with a Spanish financial institution, as well as more than 100 local governments and organizations, to develop social benefit prepaid card programs in municipalities throughout the country.
• Prepaid cards could be reloaded as needed to provide recipients with uninterrupted access to funds.
• The cards could be set up to limit transactions to specific outlets, such as supermarkets and pharmacies.

Status

The solution enabled governments and charities to quickly distribute payments and better control spending of social benefit payments, helping ensure targeted use of program funds. Nearly 400,000 cards were delivered by 2022.¹

¹Visa Navigate. January 2022.