Challenge
INPS manages more than 2.3 million beneficiaries spread across Mozambican territory, including rural areas with limited connectivity and low digital literacy rates. Notifying beneficiaries about pension payments relied on in-person visits and physical letters — a slow, costly, and error-prone process. Beneficiary authentication at the point of collection was manual and vulnerable to fraud, resulting in duplicate payments and fraudulent requests.
Solution
INPS deployed katembe to deliver payment notifications via SMS to all beneficiaries with a registered mobile phone. For rural areas where SMS fails or the beneficiary has difficulty reading, the system automatically escalates to a voice call with a spoken message in Portuguese. At the point of collection, the beneficiary receives an OTP via SMS or voice to confirm their identity before the payment is processed. Integration with INPS’s internal systems was done through the katembe API with no need to replace the existing infrastructure.
Results
INPS now reaches 2.3 million beneficiaries per payment notification, with a 97% delivery rate thanks to automatic fallback to voice. The fraud rate in the collection process fell 41% in the first year after OTP verification was implemented. The average pension request processing time dropped 60%, eliminating the need for in-person visits for most routine operations.