STRATEGIC PARTNERS
March 20, 2002
DALLAS -- The State and Local Government unit of ACS (NYSE: ACS) was awarded a five-year contract with the Texas Department of Human Services (TDHS) to assist in the operation of the state's Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) program. The contract has an estimated value of $29 million.
Texas operates the largest EBT program in the nation in delivering Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) and food stamp benefits to approximately 1.5 million Texans, or 630,000 households.
Benefits are deposited directly into an electronic account, and recipients use a Lone Star plastic card, in conjunction with a PIN, to access the funds at participating retail locations.
EBT is designed to help governments reduce administrative costs, reduce fraud and abuse and provide recipients with increased security and access to their benefits.
ACS' contract calls for it to install and maintain POS devices, provide network services, train retailers, maintain a retailer help desk and provide settlement and reconciliation processing for all Lone Star card POS transactions.
ACS partners in the project are CardSystems for transaction processing, Hypercom for deployment and maintenance of POS devices and Oberthur Card Systems for the Lone Star card.
