Summary
Section 4006(e) of the Agricultural Act of 2018 (PL 115-334) authorizes the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) to allow up to five Mobile Payment Pilots (MPPs) to allow the use of personal mobile devices, such as cellular phones, tablets and smart watches in place of SNAP Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards to conduct SNAP transactions. Respondents (SNAP state agencies (state agencies) and their SNAP business partners) will conduct pilots to test the use of mobile payment technologies for the redemption of SNAP benefits by SNAP households at participating retailers, to determine their feasibility and implications for program integrity. FNS will conduct these projects to evaluate whether allowing mobile payments is in the best interest of the program, and to therefore recommend allowing their use to the Secretary.
Request for Comments
Comments regarding this information collection received by July 14, 2025 will be considered. Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information collection should be submitted within 30 days of the publication of this notice on the following website www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain. Find this particular information collection by selecting “Currently under 30-day Review—Open for Public Comments” or by using the search function.
Need and Use of the Information
In order to implement this statutory requirement, FNS approved proposals from SNAP state agencies (state agencies) to conduct Mobile Payment Pilots (MPPs) that test the use of mobile payment technology in SNAP and meet several sets of requirements outlined in the Code, such as providing protections to participants that is similar to existing EBT technology, providing price parity between foods purchased with mobile payment technology and those purchased by other methods, ensuring adequate documentation and security measures to deter fraud, and other criteria as determined by FNS.