Oman launches ePayment Gateway

Oman has officially launched its ePayment Gateway (ePG) service, to provide payment facilities for government and commercial services in the Sultanate.

The Information Technology Authority (ITA) of Oman, which is leading the ePayment Gateway initiative, unveiled the service yesterday at an event at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. The gateway will provide a vital component in allowing government departments and other parties to charge for, and receive payment for online services.

The project has bee sponsored by Mastercard, Oman Mobile, Bank Muscat and Oman Arab Bank. At present the gateway can accept online payments from Visa, MasterCard, Amex and Diner cards, with the intention of extending the service beyond online payments to integrated contact centres and other forms of customer service.

The gateway has also been developed to be Payment Card Industry standard (PCI) compliant, to meet international security and process requirements.

Dr Salim Al Ruzaiqi, CEO of ITA, commented: “The e-Payment Gateway is a key enabler to the successful delivery of public sector services online and this is now operational for people adopt and benefit. The system which has gone operational five months ago has satisfied rigorous test and proves to be secure and resilient. Today’s launch marks another era in the delivery of e-government services for the entire nation.”The project was launched in April 2007, with a soft launch in March of this year. So far the Ministry of Sports Affairs, Omanmobile, Nawras and OmanBay have trialled services through the gateway, with some 3,000 payments processed so far.

Muhanna Moosa Baqer, Manager - ePayments said: “In about five months of operations, about 3,300 transaction have taken place successfully over the ePayment Gateway and the customers’ reaction so far has been very positive without even a single complaint from the members or their customers. The system is ready for use by both members and the public.”