DISQUS

muscati · 1 year ago

I was involved in the epayment gateway project 7 years ago back when it was BankMuscat/Omantel joint project. The people involved back then knew perfectly well that e-payments will not take off unless debit transactions are allowed. The problem then, I assume ongoing now, is that Visa still hasn't started providing the product in the area yet. If you look at your bank debit card, if it is a Visa Electron, it probably has your account number on it, or a sequence of numbers that looks nothing like a credit card number. It would be easy for Visa or Mastercard to allow the use of the debit cards online and allow a mechanism, even if it involves reissuing the cards with standard payment numbers on them.

Kishor Cariappa · 1 year ago

Lets get back to roots for a while. Do you think Oman has the internet reach in terms of numbers to have an ambitious project like ePayment Gateway? There seems to be an overzealous ambition to enter mainstream without getting the basics right. TRA must do something soon to cut rates and allow internet growth in Oman. Rest will follow, taking the natural progression curve.

Blue Chi · 1 year ago

KC, I think that the ePG is the one of the fundamentals for moving forward. The internet penetration cannot be increased without increasing the amount of relevant content to be consumed by the public, and having the ePG will create more content and services relevant to everyone. We should'ave had this ages ago!