eCASH
The ePayment Gateway promises to revolutionise the way we do transactions. All that we may need is a bank card and a secure Internet connection to buy and sell and pay our phone bills, writes Visvas Paul D Karra

Omanbay, the leading online auction and advertising website in Oman, was having a difficult time in dealing with transactions of the auctions conducted online. The option of members going to pay at the bank was not working very well as the bank cashiers frequently forgot to enter the member’s number into the computer and when the money was paid in, the administrators of the website sometimes didn’t know whom it was from.

All that changed when Omanbay became a partner of the ePayment Gateway (ePG) set up by the Information Technology Authority (ITA) – the government organisation spearheading the e-Government initiatives. Using a credit card, members of Omanbay, can now pay online and the administrators of the website need not check the bank account daily as the money goes directly into member’s accounts.

Fingertip convenience
All companies which have joined the ePG are now having a whole lot of satisfied customers who pay their bills or do online transactions conveniently from their home or office. Although the ePG is yet to catch up in a big way among the public, the fact that companies like Oman Mobile and Nawras are already partners in the ePG should be a great incentive to pay bills online. For example, the ePG can be used by individuals for paying ROP fines and payments to the ministry of manpower. The ministry of sports affairs is also selling the GCC Cup 2009 tickets online.

The provision of electronic payments (e-Payment) and in particular Internet payments was identified as a critical shared service in the Omani e-Government architecture and served as a main enabler to the online delivery of government services. The ITA has been working on the ePG since April 2007 in close cooperation with MasterCard and BankMuscat to offer e-commerce facilities for merchants. The main goal of the ePG is to provide a mechanism to handle the online payment for goods and services offered by the government as well as other commercial entities and promote e-commerce in the country.

According to Muhanna Baqer, manager ePayments, ITA, who is incharge for this prestigious project, at the moment, the ePG enables not only government-to-government transactions but also enables individuals and commercial organisations to do transactions online with the government. “Continuing further Baqer says, “Every process has an evolution and as people become e-savvy and realise the benefits of sitting in the comfort of their homes or office and doing transactions like ordering luxury goods or paying their utility bills then ePG will become popular and objectives will be achieved.”

A wider net
The ePG is part of eOman initiative launched by the government of Oman to make the country a digital society wherein a master portal will link all government and private entities to each other as well as to the public to conduct online business. The presence of a robust and secure ePG enables e-government shared services to be paid for electronically using major local and international credit and debit cards, and in future, other electronic payment instruments.

However, local banks, wary of allowing debit cards for their online transactions due to security reasons, have come up with their own cards under the garb of various names like pre-paid cards, internet cards which can be used exclusively for web payments. Talking about the benefits for Omanbay after joining ePG, Mustafa Ali Mohammed of Tala United says: “Paying online is automatic and the money is paid into the member’s account immediately and so he can go ahead and place his listings on the homepage immediately, even on a Friday, or in the middle of the night. Since Omanbay is mainly used by people at home in their leisure time the fact that they can pay us 24 hours a day seven days a week is very useful, both for us and for them.”

Safe and secure
The ePG allows secure transfer of funds via the Internet, for online shopping of services or goods as it is built on MasterCard Internet Gateway Services (MIGS). A payment server acquires e-payment and seeks an authorisation of payment from the customer’s bank and facilitates customer’s bank to transfer funds to the merchant’s acquiring bank. ePG provides payment services for e-commerce and e-government as the gateway accepts all international credit cards, debit cards including Visa, MasterCard, Amex and Diner cards. It also supports various electronic channels including Internet, mobile phone, IVR, call centre. Users need not worry as the gateway is reliable, secure and future proof with payment card industry standards. Since the soft launch of the ePG in mid March this year, the Ministry of Sports Affairs, Oman Mobile, Nawras, ROP, BankMuscat and OmanBay are the current members of the system. “In five months, more than 3300 transactions took place successfully over the ePG and the customers’ reaction so far has been very positive without even a single complaint from the members or their customers,” Baqer informs while speaking about the operations.

Partners speak
“Oman Mobile was the first to sign the e-payment portal agreement with the ITA. This is based on our efforts and vision to form a link between the private and public sector for a variety of services that benefit our customers. And it has been in accordance with supporting the government’s strategy in adopting the efforts and projects of eOman and eGoverment,” says Zuwaina bint Sultan Al Rashdi, Branding & Market Communications Manager. “Joining the ePG has created an awareness at Oman Mobile of how much in demand these particular types of services are and it has provided us with the incentive to offer more services to our customers in the near future and to focus more efforts on electronic services which will make life easier and more comfortable for them,” says Al Rashdi.

Nawras, the second mobile services provider in the Sultanate, has also joined the ePG to bring more benefits and services to its customers both prepaid (Mousbak) as well as postpaid (Ajel). Nawras is offering the ePG services through MyNawras, an exclusive and highly convenient self-care facility available to all its customers on its website.

“The Internet payment services is part of the convenient bill payment channels that have been created by Nawras to bring ease and convenience to its customers. These payment channels range from Nawras Stores, banks, ATMs etc. The ePG is actually bringing in more payment channels for our customers,” says Nash’at Ahmed Al Riyami, product manager, who is incharge of the e-payment portal project at Nawras. “At the end of the day, for Nawras, it is all about providing a better customer experience. It improves our relationship with our customers and there has been a great response to our Internet bill payment services. The e-payment services also helps us to focus on finding more innovative methods to sell our services to the people,” Al Riyami adds.

Summing up the ePG benefits, Baqer says that there are numerous socio-economic advantages of embracing e-payment services. Private sector entities can join the gateway and can increase their customer base and market with easy payment options. The public can now pay for services and products completely online using any of the major credit/debit cards and the use of gateway is free for buyers. No longer do they need to visit the physical offices or wait in long queues to make payments. Eventually, when there are less cars on the roads, there will be less traffic jams, reducing pollution and also reducing stress-levels of people because they do not have to worry about finding parking space to pay their bills. The ePG will also allows Omani merchants to sell their products and services on the Internet to customers worldwide and customers in Oman could continue to purchase products and services from any part of the world on the Internet and pay for them online as well.