More than 3.7 billion people worldwide still lack reliable connectivity, while 1.7 billion remain outside the formal banking system, according to figures cited by Paycode. In many rural communities, the problem is not simply whether people have access to a financial service; it is whether the identity, connectivity and infrastructure needed to use that service exist in the first place.
South African fintech Paycode has built its business around those limitations. Instead of assuming that users have smartphones, bank accounts or constant internet access, the company has developed biometric identity and payment infrastructure that can process transactions offline and synchronise them with financial systems when connectivity returns.
The approach has been used in programmes involving farmer subsidies, social grants, humanitarian payments and financial services in remote communities. In Zambia, for example, Paycode says its technology supported the distribution of $22 million in farmer subsidies to 198,000 farmers in deep-rural areas in less than eight weeks.
That puts Paycode in a different part of the fintech market. Its primary customer is not necessarily the person making the payment, but the bank, government, central bank, development organisation or financial institution that needs to deliver money and financial services to people who conventional digital infrastructure often struggles to reach.
How Paycode started
The company’s founder, Ralph Pecker, grew up in rural Zambia and later worked in technology and entrepreneurship. According to Paycode, he was asked to solve a secure last-mile payment problem for Zambia’s Ministry of Agriculture, which eventually led to the development of the technology that became the company’s EDAPT platform.
The initial challenge was straightforward but difficult to solve at scale: how do you distribute money to people in remote areas when they may not have bank accounts, reliable internet access or formal identification?
The answer became a combination of biometric identity, payment cards and offline transaction technology. Rather than making connectivity a prerequisite for receiving money, Paycode designed a system that could authenticate users and process transactions locally before synchronising the records once a connection became available.
That early agricultural project helped define the company’s direction. Paycode moved towards what it now describes as last-mile financial infrastructure for governments, financial institutions and organisations working with underserved communities.
The three barriers Paycode targets
Paycode identifies three major barriers to financial inclusion: identity, connectivity and cost.
The identity problem comes first. Someone may live in a remote community and have no formal government-issued identification, making it difficult to open a bank account or access other regulated financial services.
Paycode uses biometric information such as fingerprints and other identity data to create digital identities in the field. Its field teams can register users and issue cards during the onboarding process, with the company saying registration and card issuance can take between five and seven minutes per user.
Connectivity is the second challenge. Many digital-payment systems assume that a phone, payment terminal and central server can communicate continuously, but that assumption does not hold in many rural areas.
Paycode’s system is designed to work offline. Users can authenticate themselves and conduct transactions without a live internet connection, with transaction information synchronised with the relevant financial system when connectivity returns.
The third issue is cost. Serving people in remote locations can be expensive for banks, governments and development organisations because of the infrastructure required to reach relatively dispersed populations.
Paycode’s model is designed to provide a common infrastructure layer that can support multiple services rather than requiring a separate system for every programme.
How its biometric payment system works
During onboarding, a field operator captures the user’s biometric and know-your-customer information. The person can then receive a secure biometric smart card or use another supported interface to access the financial services connected to their identity.
The biometric element provides the authentication layer. Instead of relying entirely on a PIN or password, the system can verify the individual using biometric information.
The payment layer then allows the user to access services connected to the platform. Paycode says these can include cash, mobile money, remittances, insurance, microloans, airtime, electricity payments, pensions and social grants.
The important part is that the system can continue operating without constant connectivity. This makes the technology particularly relevant to communities where mobile networks are unreliable or electricity and internet access are limited.
Once the system reconnects, transaction information can be synchronised with the relevant central infrastructure. That gives institutions a digital record of activity without requiring every transaction to happen online.
The Zambia farmer subsidy programme
One of Paycode’s clearest examples comes from Zambia’s Farmer Input Support Program. The company says it helped the Zambian Department of Agriculture distribute $22 million in farmer subsidies to 198,000 farmers in deep-rural areas in under eight weeks.
The significance of the project was not simply the amount of money distributed. The programme had to reach farmers who lived in areas where conventional banking and digital payment infrastructure could be difficult to access.
Paycode’s biometric identity and offline payment technology allowed beneficiaries to be registered and receive payments without depending on continuous internet connectivity.
This is the type of environment where the company’s approach makes the most sense. Rather than forcing rural users to adapt to infrastructure designed for urban, connected populations, the infrastructure is designed around the conditions those users already face.
Moving beyond agriculture
In Mozambique, the company says it created biometric digital identities and distributed cash payments to 18,000 social-grant recipients through a World Bank-funded programme with the country’s Instituto Nacional de Acção Social.
The same underlying technology can also be used for humanitarian payments. This matters in areas where traditional banking infrastructure may be limited or disrupted, and aid organisations need to verify recipients before releasing funds.
Paycode says its platform provides a digital record of transactions and allows organisations to track payments while still reaching beneficiaries in areas without reliable connectivity.
This gives the company a broader market than conventional fintech. Governments can use the infrastructure for social programmes, banks can use it for financial services, and humanitarian organisations can use it for aid distribution.
The Mastercard partnership
In 2021, Mastercard announced a partnership with Paycode to combine Mastercard’s Community Pass platform with Paycode’s biometric identity and offline-payment technology. The goal was to expand access to government assistance and financial services in remote African communities.
The partnership was significant because it connected Paycode’s last-mile infrastructure to a global payments network.
Mastercard’s Community Pass was designed for communities where traditional digital infrastructure can be difficult to deploy. Combining that with biometric identification and offline transactions created a system that could support payments even when connectivity was limited.
For Paycode, partnerships like this are important because the company does not need to become a bank or replace existing payment networks. Its role is to provide infrastructure that can sit between institutions and the people they are trying to reach.
Paycode and blockchain
Although Paycode’s business predates the current interest in blockchain-based payment infrastructure, the company has increasingly explored blockchain as part of its technology stack.
In June 2025, the Algorand Foundation announced a strategic partnership with Paycode to explore using public blockchain technology for digital identity, payment transparency and financial inclusion. Paycode selected Algorand as the blockchain it planned to use in migrating elements of its digital payment infrastructure on-chain.
The partnership also included plans to explore stablecoin-based settlement and blockchain infrastructure for offline-first payment systems. Paycode said at the time that its technology was already being used by more than six million people across eight countries and had facilitated the distribution of $250 million in aid and social payments. Those figures were reported by Paycode and the Algorand Foundation and should therefore be treated as company and partner claims rather than independently audited figures.
The blockchain component is interesting because Paycode is not trying to replace its offline system with a blockchain. Instead, the company is exploring how blockchain can provide another layer for transparency, settlement and interoperability.
That could allow its existing offline infrastructure to connect with newer financial technologies without abandoning the environments where connectivity remains unreliable.
Exploring offline CBDCs
The company says it has conducted technical demonstrations with central banks in West Africa in which CBDC transactions were processed and synchronised in offline environments. It says its biometric smart-card system allowed users to authenticate and initiate transactions without network access, with records synchronised when connectivity returned.
Paycode has also reported completing a technical proof of concept with the Central Bank of Nigeria in 2024 focused on improving the eNaira’s offline functionality. This is a company-reported claim rather than evidence that Nigeria has adopted Paycode’s technology as part of the national eNaira infrastructure.
The potential use case is broader than CBDCs themselves. Central banks are increasingly interested in how digital currencies can reach people who do not own smartphones or live in areas with dependable internet access.
Paycode’s offline architecture gives it an entry point into that conversation.
Why offline payments still matter
The financial industry has spent years moving towards instant digital payments. Systems such as mobile money, instant bank transfers and QR payments have made it possible to move money quickly when the necessary infrastructure is available.
A payment system that works perfectly in Johannesburg, Lagos or Nairobi may not work the same way in a rural village where the network disappears regularly. Power cuts, weak mobile coverage and limited smartphone ownership can all turn an otherwise simple digital payment into a problem.
Paycode argues that financial inclusion should not depend on permanent connectivity. Its offline technology is therefore not simply a technical workaround. It is central to the company’s business model and the markets it serves.
Paycode’s international footprint
The company says its technology operates in countries including Afghanistan, Ghana, Zambia, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo, among others. Its case studies cover applications ranging from agricultural payments and social grants to financial transactions for underserved communities.
Its work in Afghanistan is particularly relevant to the company’s offline strategy. Paycode says Afghanistan International Bank implemented its biometric identity and payment technology to digitise transactions for donors, NGOs and corporates.
The geographical spread also shows why Paycode’s model is not limited to African financial inclusion. The same problems of identity, connectivity and access can exist in conflict-affected or infrastructure-poor markets outside Africa.
The business model
Paycode operates primarily as a B2B technology provider rather than a consumer fintech.
Its customers can include financial institutions, governments, central banks, development organisations and companies that need to deliver payments or services to large groups of people. The institution using Paycode’s infrastructure can integrate the technology into its own financial or public-service programme.
This model allows Paycode to operate across different use cases without needing to build a separate consumer brand in every country.
It also means that the company’s growth depends heavily on institutional contracts and partnerships. Winning a large government or development programme can bring thousands or hundreds of thousands of users onto the infrastructure at once.
The downside is that institutional sales can take longer than consumer fintech growth. Regulatory approvals, procurement processes and integrations with banks or government systems can all slow deployment.
The challenges ahead
Paycode’s biggest advantage, its ability to operate where conventional digital infrastructure struggles, is also one of its biggest commercial challenges. The communities it serves can be expensive to reach. Field registration, biometric equipment, smart cards, agents and local support all create costs that a purely digital financial service may avoid.
The company also operates in highly regulated areas. Identity, payments, government assistance, CBDCs and financial data all come with significant compliance requirements.
Biometric technology brings additional concerns around privacy and data security. The more financial and identity services become connected to one biometric profile, the more important it becomes to protect that information from misuse, theft or unauthorised access.
There is also the question of scale. Paycode has demonstrated its technology through multiple programmes, but expanding from individual deployments to a large, interconnected financial infrastructure requires long-term institutional adoption.
Where Paycode is going
Paycode’s recent work suggests that the company wants to move beyond being known primarily as an offline payments provider.
Its partnerships around blockchain, stablecoins and CBDCs show an attempt to connect its existing last-mile infrastructure to the next generation of financial technology. The company is effectively trying to make newer digital financial systems usable in places where smartphones, electricity and reliable internet cannot be taken for granted.
That could become increasingly relevant as governments and financial institutions experiment with digital currencies.
If CBDCs, stablecoins and other digital assets become part of mainstream payment systems, they will still need to reach people who are offline or underbanked. Paycode is positioning its infrastructure for that problem.
Its long-term opportunity is therefore not simply to process more transactions. It is to become a bridge between sophisticated digital financial infrastructure and the people who remain furthest from it.
Paycode’s place in African fintech
Paycode’s story is different from that of most African fintech companies. It did not begin by building another mobile wallet, consumer banking app or digital lending platform. Its starting point was a much less glamorous problem: how to securely deliver money to people in places where the banking system, identity infrastructure and internet connection may not reach.
That problem led the company to biometric identity and offline payments. Those technologies have since been applied to agricultural subsidies, social grants, humanitarian assistance and financial services across several markets.
Now, Paycode is adding blockchain, stablecoin and CBDC capabilities to that infrastructure. The company’s partnership with Algorand and its reported CBDC demonstrations show that it sees offline capability as relevant not only to today’s financial inclusion efforts but also to the future of digital money.
The real test will be whether Paycode can turn that technical capability into a widely adopted infrastructure layer while maintaining security, affordability and privacy.
Digital finance can be truly inclusive only if it works for people who lack the ideal conditions assumed by many modern payment systems. Paycode bets that the future of financial inclusion will not be entirely online, and that the people furthest from reliable connectivity should not be left behind simply because the infrastructure around them is not ready.