Arnhem Land Progress Aboriginal Corporation (ALPA), established in 1972, is an Aboriginal-owned benevolent organisation which provides benefits to its members from the successful operation of community retail stores.
Compulsory Income management was introduced to many Aboriginal communities in 2007 in the Howard Government's Northern Territory Emergency Response (NTER).
Income management works by quarantining a proportion of social security payments. This money can only be used to buy ‘essentials’.
Income managed funds must not be spent on prohibited items, including alcohol, tobacco, gambling and pornography. Recipients must negotiate arrangements with CentrePay to pay bills using the quarantined amounts.
The ALPA FOODcard evolved from community consultations in Gapuwiyak in 2004 and is designed to be a tool to help families to regularly eat healthy meals throughout the whole pay cycle. It has been hugely successful, according to ALPA, with 12,500 people across the region participating in its decade of operations, voluntarily allocating some $15 million in income to “healthy choices” as determined by the community.
Technical objective
Design an Income Management system with the following functionality/components.
Offline capability
Smartcard based Income Management system which could be operated for several days off-line.
Customers may choose to have a percentage of their pay automatically paid into their FOODcard then spend that money over the remainder of the pay cycle or period on a selected range of food and household essentials.
The card contains payment sequence interlock to prevent multiple payments between stores when communications are down. It is common for a card holder to migrate to other stores which may or may not have internet connectivity.
Regulatory Compliance
FOODcard must comply with Government legislative and privacy requirements. The system must be auditable by Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA).
Satellite network
The system required a secure private Satellite network that operates on a national basis independent of conventional telecommunications infrastructure. Remote sites such as Elcho Island are located off the coast of NT, bounded on the western side by the Arafura Sea.
During certain times of the year, energy from the Sun can overpower a satellite's signal (Sun fade), the system will automatically failover to conventional telecommunications infrastructure.
Installation of Wireless Point-to-Point Microwave Bridge Links between buildings on same site acting as a transparent extension of the Ethernet backbone or segment.
Smartcard
EMV compliant microprocessor Smartcard capable of storing Biometric (photograph) and CentrePay income managed fund (IMF) data.
The card functions as an independent data storage device such that card holder can purchase goods irrespective of frequent breakdowns in the communication system at a particular site.
The card file system efficiently structured to allow over 4K of biometric data to be read in timely manner.
Kiosk
One or more pending IMF payments are loaded onto the card when the card is inserted into one or more Kiosks located in the foyer of each supermarket
The Kiosk notifies card holder of when a payment has been transferred, if no payments are pending and the total balance
A built in price check scanner also indicates if scanned item can be purchased off FOODcard
Grocery Checkout
The ALPA Member Stores utilise Worldsmart Retail Grocery Manager. The technological challenge for Worldsmart Technology was to develop a mechanism to interface with Worldsmart Grocery Manager to support Income Managed Funds.
When a FOODcard is inserted into checkout card reader, the console operator is prompted to view a photograph of the primary card holder and up to fifteen additional authorised users of the FOODcard
The balance on the card is displayed, the balance reduces as each item is rung up on the register. The card cannot be overdrawn. Items blocked by the register for purchase from the FOODcard can then be paid using cash or EFTPOS by the customer
Data Pipeline
SQL Server Service Broker provides native support for messaging and queuing to the central WorldSmart SQL Server Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance.
The system required the capability of transmitting secure data over an unreliable network in real time In order to download payment data upload POS sale basket.