Provision of Pre-Paid cards for the use by United Nations staff and conference meeting participa ...

RFI Background. To support its day-to-day operations and various missions, the United Nations Secretariat has a need to periodically issue prepaid cards to cover incidentals, online purchases, pay in-country Daily Subsistence Allowance (DSA) to meeting participants in conferences organized by the United Nations in various countries. The United Nations currencies: the base currency of the United Nations is the United States Dollar (USD). Additionally, EUR, CHF, JPY and GBP would be considered as permissible to use to load the prepaid cards. The United Nations countries: The United Nations Secretariat is present in 131 Countries. Therefore, the prepaid cards would potentially be used in all of these countries. The following countries would be considered as the starting point for implementation: United States, European Union, Switzerland, Azerbaijan, Senegal, Tanzania, Indonesia, Zimbabwe, Czech Republic, Brazil, Panama, Trinidad and Tobago. The load currency would be USD or one of the currencies mentioned above. Prepaid cards for the United Nations staff: Prepaid cards would be issued to staff members designated by the United Nations Secretary General. The load amount would be limited at a max of USD 10,000 or an equivalent. The prepaid card should be valid for a period of two years and reloadable up to the maximum limit. Prepaid cards for United Nations meeting participants: Meeting participants are invited and vetted by the United Nations Secretariat. They are provided with a DSA amount intended to be spent on the expenses such as meals, lodging, gratuities and other payments during a conference. A prepaid card would be issued for a duration not exceeding the duration of the conference plus five business days. The limit on the card would be defined by the duration of the conference. Generally, the DSA amount is smaller than USD 10,000. Type of prepaid cards: (a) Physical card (plastic card) (b) Virtual card loaded in a smartphone. (c) All major card providers (ex. master card, Visa, and Amex) Future developments: (a) Apple Pay (b) Google Pay (c) Other Wallets (d) Additional load currencies Prepaid card management: The United Nations should have the ability to monitor expenses and manage all prepaid cards issued to its staff and meeting participants. The frequency of the loading should not be limited during the validity of the card. The UN should be able to unload the card, including expired ones (the automatic unload of the expired card can be considered.) The United Nations uses SWIFT (SWIFT member; BIC code UNATUS33) as well as the SAP ERP. The UN would consider interfacing the management of the prepaid cards to its ERP system and to use SWIFT to fund bank accounts to load (and unload) the prepaid cards. Those bank accounts should be under the name of the United Nations and segregated from any other prepaid card schemes. Sanction Screening: The United Nations would be equipped with the SWIFT sanction screening and it would screen the beneficiaries of the prepaid card for operational purpose.