Under the slogan “Simple – Modern – With Transparency,” the Ministry of Social Cohesion and Family held an informational event on Friday, June 26, 2026, at the Hellenic World Foundation regarding the Prepaid Social Benefits Card.
According to the relevant announcement, the Prepaid Card covers 19 categories of benefits provided by the Directorate of Social Welfare (DYPA) and the Social Security Organization (OPEKA) and introduces a unified method for the payment of welfare benefits, allowances, and financial assistance. With the card, each beneficiary receives the benefits included in the program through a simpler, safer, and more transparent process.
“Social policy isn’t just about establishing a benefit. It’s also about disbursing it properly—ensuring it arrives quickly, securely, and without unnecessary hassle, and that the beneficiary can easily use it to purchase goods and services.
This is what the Prepaid Social Benefits Card is designed to do. Specific benefits from OPEC and DYPA are now paid through a single payment method. Each beneficiary is assigned a card, to which the social benefits included in the program are credited.
Beneficiaries may withdraw up to 50% of each benefit amount in cash. The remaining amount is used via the card to purchase goods and services. “We are not eliminating the flexibility that cash provides. We are combining it with a more modern, safer, and more transparent way of conducting transactions,” said Domna Michaelidou, Minister of Social Cohesion and Family, in a statement.
According to data presented at the event, from March 2025 to the present, more than 963,000 applications have been approved in the Prepaid Card Integrated Information System, while 877,019 unique beneficiaries have received their benefits through the new payment system.
Through the Prepaid Card, payments have already been made to, among others, 647,600 recipients of the A21 Child Allowance, 203,734 recipients of the Guaranteed Minimum Income, 91,340 recipients of the Birth Allowance, and 767 recipients of foster care financial assistance. As for the DYPA, from March 2025 to the present, 4,864,707 benefit payments have been made via prepaid cards, totaling more than 2.17 billion euros.
This was followed by a discussion on the topic “The Prepaid Card in Practice: Simpler, More Modern, and Transparent,” featuring the Secretary General for Social Solidarity and Poverty Alleviation, Konstantinos Megaritis, the President of OPEC, Epameinondas Atsaves, the Director General of DYPA, Konstantinos Geormas, as well as a cardholder.
The discussion covered how the Prepaid Card is implemented, the collaboration among the agencies involved in the project’s implementation, and the benefits of the new system for beneficiaries: less bureaucracy, more secure transactions, and greater transparency in payments. Special consideration has been given to beneficiaries with severe visual impairments, for whom payments continue to be made via bank account.
This initiative is being implemented by the Ministry of Social Cohesion and Family as part of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan “Greece 2.0,” with funding from the European Union’s NextGenerationEU program.