Maryland officials approve 'tap and go' EBT cards for public benefits
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The electronic benefit transfer cards aim to reduce theft from programs that serve almost 1 million in the state.
This story was originally published by Maryland Matters.
Maryland will become one of the first states in the nation to distribute “tap and go” EBT, or electronic benefit transfer, cards to state residents, giving almost 1 million Marylanders secure access to their cash and food benefits.
It could be months before the cards are fully available, under a multiyear contract for Fidelity Information Systems approved Wednesday by the Board of Public Works. But Department of Human Services officials were already welcoming the new contract, which they hope will reverse a rising number of benefit thefts from recipients.
“This contract will make benefits access seamless and safer for the 943,000 Marylanders we serve through EBT, including 680,000 Marylanders who receive SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits,” Human Services Secretary Rafael López said in a prepared statement.
Wednesday’s award ends more than a year of legal wrangling between the state and the two companies bidding on the project, and implementation of the chip-enabled cards cannot come soon enough for Comptroller Brooke Lierman, one of three members of the Board of Public Works.
“We are losing state resources and people are losing their funds every day, and I want this to move as quickly as possible to get those chip cards deployed,” Lierman said at Wednesday’s board meeting.
The contract to Fidelity could be worth as much as $38.4 million over 10 years, for the company to provide chip-enabled EBT cards to about 943,000 recipients of SNAP, of Temporary Cash Assistance (TCA) and the Temporary Disability Assistance Program (TDAP). About 680,000 Maryland citizens got an average of $180 per month in SNAP benefits in fiscal 2025, according to a DHS press release.
The new, chip-enabled cards are expected to help reduce “benefit theft,” the DHS statement said, a statement reinforced by DHS Chief of Staff Webster Ye at Wednesday’s board meeting.
“In this incredibly tight budget landscape, we want to maximize every Maryland state taxpayer dollar and minimize our replacement of stolen federal benefits,” Ye told the board.
The implementation of “tap and go” technology in EBT cards is making the system “easier and more secure,” acting as the state’s method of protection from fraud and benefit theft, the DHS statement said. Fidelity plans to incorporate Europay, Mastercard and Visa (EMV), which uses chip cards to allow users to wave or tap their cards when making a payment, according to board documents.
Maryland will become one of the first states to use both contact and “tap and go” EBT cards, if successful. Currently, California is the only state using this technology for EBT services.
Fidelity worked with California to successfully deploy 4 million chip cards earlier this year, and saw “substantially decreased stolen EBT benefits,” Ye said.
That experience helped give Fidelity the edge over the other major bidder on the Maryland contract, Conduent State and Local Solutions, and may bring a close to a yearlong fight between the two companies.
Conduent had the contract as EBT provider for Maryland and it won the contract again last year over Fidelity, when DHS put the project out to bid.
But Fidelity challenged the award before the Maryland State Board of Contract Appeals, which ruled on Aug. 30, 2024, that Conduent’s proposal was “not reasonably susceptible for being selected” due to conditional language — making the Conduent contract void. The contract appeal board’s ruling was upheld on March 31, 2025, by a Baltimore Ciry Circuit Court judge.
That ruling has been appealed by Conduent to the Appellate Court of Maryland, but DHS dropped its legal challenges at that point and accepted Fidelity as the winning bidder.
“We acknowledge our mistake, and as a result, we have chosen not to file an appeal of the Circuit Court’s decision,” Ye said, acknowledging that the department did not properly follow the procurement review process.
In response, Lierman joked, “I told you so.”
While it may have lost its bid on the next contract, Conduent holds the current contract, which runs through June 30, 2026. The Fidelity contract begins on July 1, 2026, but Wednesday’s award includes $7.7 million for Fidelity to “transition in” over the next nine months and the ground running next summer.
Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@marylandmatters.org.