Forage Enables More EBT Transactions with Help from Basis Theory

Nearly 43 million people in the United States received benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in 2023, totaling almost $154 billion. All of that funding was distributed via Electronic Benefit Transfers (EBT), which are payments processed like debit card transactions. 

When someone initiates an EBT payment, they must enter a PIN (personal identification number) which then pairs with the payment’s primary account number (PAN) to authorize the transaction. 

In 2021, more than 250,000 establishments, primarily supermarkets and retailers like Walmart or Target, accepted SNAP benefits, but only a small percentage could do so online. 

Forage is a payments company enabling merchants to accept EBT SNAP payments in-store and online. With a single API, Forage enables merchants to accept EBT SNAP, EBT Cash, and credit or debit card payments. 

Forage needed a high-security environment to encrypt and move the PIN before getting to the end processor. 

“EBT is unique because it runs on its own rails and requires processing a PIN,” explained Victor Fimbres, CTO of Forage. “Handling that PIN is high stakes; having these funds stolen means someone can’t eat.”

As one of three USDA-approved providers for EBT transactions, Forage needed a partner to tokenize the PIN without adding too much latency to the payment processing flow. Fimbres recalls needing the solution within the quarter, and the solution had to provide an environment that adhered to PCI guidelines.

“We needed the solution to also work with our customers’ mobile and browser applications,” Fimbres explained. “Basis Theory was the only provider who checked all those boxes.” 

Finding a Long Term Solution

Fimbres said the company already had a partner tokenizing and storing PINs but was looking for more redundancy in its processes due to availability issues with its current partner. He was introduced to Basis Theory as another possible solution to tokenizing, moving, and vaulting PIN data through a mutual investor. 

Integrating with Basis Theory started with using the SDK and developer documentation. Because Basis Theory was built with credit card payments in mind, some flexibility was needed on both sides before entering production.

“The level of support we received was exceptional; everyone has been great at listening to our requests and helping us deliver features to our customers,” Fimbres said. “EBT isn’t fully 1:1 with cards, so we’re very appreciative of the flexibility from the Basis Theory team. The integration ended up going smoothly.”

Today, Forage works with Basis Theory to tokenize, route, and vault PANs from the EBT cards during transactions. The vaulted PANs are used as an input for the PIN encryption procedure.

“Our onboarding felt very white glove,” Fimbres says. “The shared Slack channel helped facilitate conversations between engineering teams.”  

Having been in production for over 12 months as a redundant solution to their initial tokenization provider, Fimbres says the technology's performance has led to more traffic routed to Basis Theory. 

“The availability of Basis Theory has been superior,” Fimbres says. “We’ve had a few issues with latency and were pleasantly surprised, and super appreciative, of how quickly the Basis Theory team responds with a root cause analysis. That is expected now.”

Partnerships with Uber Eats, DoorDash, and hundreds of grocery stores are helping Forage expand access to EBT in the United States.

“Every zip code in America should have access to buying online groceries with EBT,” Fimbres says. “We’re in the beginning phase of that happening.”