The ACU has been announced as one of the winners in Paybefore's 2016 Pay Awards, scooping an award in the 'Best Government Benefits Delivery' category.

This international competition recognises outstanding examples of prepaid technology across multiple sectors. Here at the ACU, cash cards are primarily used to support the Chevening and Commonwealth Scholarship Commission programmes. When scholars are selected, part of their award package includes an initial financial stipend to cover essential costs experienced when arriving in the UK. To streamline this process, the ACU issues all scholars with a preloaded cash card in sterling (GBP), meaning thousands of scholars are able to hit the ground running as soon as they arrive in the UK each year. It is a simple yet highly effective practice – without which the ACU would find it challenging to facilitate initial payments.

Urfan Arif, Head of Finance at the ACU, who is in charge of setting up and managing the prepaid cash cards for scholars, said: 'An increasingly competitive marketplace means that the ACU must be agile, innovative, customer-focused and always striving for efficiencies. To this end, we have implemented new practices that will enable the ACU to continue to provide the high level of service that stakeholders have come to expect of us.'

Since joining the ACU in late 2013, Urfan has introduced various schemes to improve the organisation's efficiency and effectiveness – the prepaid cards scheme for scholars is just one of these achievements.

The ACU is now entered into the Best-in-Category competition, and this is where we need your help. You can vote for the ACU in the 'Best Government Benefits Delivery' on the Pay Before website here – voting is open until Monday 29 February.

For ten years, the Pay Awards has conferred the most prestigious recognition of excellence in the worldwide prepaid, mobile and emerging payments industry. The awards are presented annually by Paybefore, whose publications are the leading source of industry information for payments executives.