SOS Children’s Villages Kenya is trialling a smart card payment system to distribute aid in northern Kenya and is hoping to roll the programme out across East Africa.

Kenyan mobile financial services company, Paystream has devised point of sale (POS) cards which are issued to people in need of aid who can use them to securely pay for approved goods in stores with a POS terminal.

Currently there are three approved stores in the village of Marsabit and almost 2,000 families are using the cards.

SOS Children's Villages Kenya can monitor transactions from its headquarters and the cashless system reduces the risk of misappropriation of funds and the amount of administration for SOS Children.

Paystream subsidised part of the development costs for the system and chief executive Sam Ndegwa said: “We are delighted to partner with SOS Children’s Villages and to be able to come up with a safe, reliable card-based solution to help food aid get to the right people.”

After the six-month trial period Paystream and the charity hope to introduce the scheme in other locations receiving aid.