Control and transparency in public spending.
Cifra lets a public bank issue and run the government's spend program under its own brand: every expense is authorized in real time against each institution's rules, with full traceability and automatic reconciliation.
Control arrives after the money is spent.
Cash per diems, petty cash, advances and reimbursements: the State's operating spend is controlled through forms and after-the-fact audits. The result is familiar: leakage, late settlements and little visibility for whoever manages the budget. Digitizing public spend is not swapping cash for a card. It is moving the rule to the moment of authorization.
Rules per institution, enforced at authorization.
Rules per agency
Each institution defines allowed merchants, limits, geographies, schedules and periods. The rule lives in the platform and is enforced before the money moves.
Cards per beneficiary
Officials and agencies receive physical or virtual cards with their assigned funds and rules. No cash, no advances, no manual settlements.
Full traceability
Every movement is recorded: who authorized it, under which rule, from which account, to which merchant. Auditable evidence from the source.
Automatic reconciliation
Data is exported directly to budget-control and comptroller systems, in the format each institution requires.
Funds stay in the bank
Resources remain in the issuing bank's accounts. No fintech sits between the State and its money.
The bank's brand
The program is presented under the public bank's brand. Cifra runs underneath.
Three actors, one platform.
Government
Sets spend policy per institution and accesses the information in real time.
Issuing bank
Issues the program under its brand, holds the funds and runs the relationship with the institutions.
Cifra
Provides the complete platform: issuing, processing, spend controls and reconciliation.
Banco Nacional de Panamá and the MEF: petty cash without checks or cash.
Banco Nacional de Panamá, together with Panama's Ministry of Economy and Finance, is replacing the reimbursement checks and cash behind the National Government's petty-cash funds with Visa commercial debit cards. The program runs on Cifra: each institution sets its own card and amount policy, every expense is authorized against those rules, and every transaction is recorded with digital evidence for audit and internal control.
THE PROGRAM
891
NATIONAL GOVERNMENT PETTY-CASH FUNDS
US$1.94M
APPROXIMATE AMOUNT IN SCOPE
~11,000
REIMBURSEMENT CHECKS ISSUED IN 2024
35
PETTY-CASH FUNDS PILOTED OVER 6 MONTHS
IN THE PRESS · La Estrella de Panamá · September 24, 2026
Banco Nacional convierte 11,000 cheques del Gobierno en transacciones electrónicas por $1.94 millones
Read the articleA model that repeats with each country's public bank.
The program does not require the government to change banks. Authorizations resolve inside the platform. That's why Cifra goes live in weeks: there is no integration project to depend on. Each government institution onboards with its own rules.
Let's talk about your public-spend program.
In a 30-minute call we show the platform live and walk through how it is implemented with your country's public bank.