2-16-96. FinTim: "First world smartcards and third world pensioners." Each month, a thin line of grandparents and great-grandparents shuffles across the rural wilderness clutching fresh banknotes dished out by the most sophisticated cash dispensers in the world. The machines are the hub of a thriving market economy. Mounted on unmarked pick-up trucks and escorted by armed guards, they are pursued across the hillsides by traders carrying buckets of freshly slaughtered meat, caged chickens, and an array of traditional medicines. The able-bodied carry the disabled and infirm with them in wheelbarrows. Under makeshift awnings, every pensioner swipes a plastic card through the machine, then rolls a weathered finger across a tiny scanner which checks the fingerprint against a digital template and dispenses a monthly allowance. Another machine, the "smartbox", keeps a tally of its contents and transmits an encrypted data stream with a constantly updated record of deposits to its destination bank. If tampered with, it sprays its contents with indelible purple ink like that with which the security police once sprayed anti-apartheid protesters. No reports yet of the graffiti inspired by the coloured ink in the 1980s, when township walls proudly proclaimed: "The Purple Shall Govern." PUR_ple