Barclaycard has collaborated with UK government IT agency Becta to develop a special pre-paid card to deliver grants to families qualifying for a free computer and Internet connection under the Home Access programme.
The national rollout of the scheme follows a successful pilot in late 2009 in which 12,500 families from two Local Authority areas qualified for Internet access provision grants.
Barclaycard was contracted to provide the payment mechanism to securely transfer the financial award and worked alongside Becta to develop a payment card that combines a financial grant threshold, single use transaction safeguards, and preferred merchant restrictions
During the pilot, Becta recorded a 99.5% take-up rate for the card, says Brclaycard.