Monday, Jul 11, 2011
Gulf News
Dubai Revenues from the e-payment gateway have jumped by 55 per cent in the first half of this year to Dh1.7 billion, and a top government official said that Dubai Government is to expand the scope of the service by including new banks and services.
E-pay enables customers to electronically settle dues for various government services in a safe and secure manner.
The amount was collected from 1,396,973 transactions involving 30 government departments.
This is up compared to Dh1.1 billion collected through 835,095 transactions in the first half of 2010.
Dubai is the first government in the Gulf to implement the service, doing so nearly a decade ago.
Top collectors
Dubai Customs, the Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) and Dubai Health Authority we the top three collectors in terms of cash mount, while the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) replaced Dubai customs in the top three for number of transactions.
Ahmad Bin Humaidan, Director General of Dubai e-Government, said: These results clearly indicate the favourable pace of e-transformation in Dubai and also reflect the increasing adoption of e-pay as a preferred mode of payment to complete government transactions on one hand and the confidence shown by customers in the efficiency and safety of this option on the other.
The service allows both corporate and individual customers to complete e-payments for government services either through credit cards or direct debit from the customers account in participating banks, he said.
The system allows payments to be made through various channels, including the internet and ATMs.
Additionally, m-pay is a quick payment channel developed by Dubai e-Government particularly for instant payments of fines, fees for a continued service or charges to avoid a new fine.
Growing
In the ten years since the introduction of e-government, the number of e-services has grown from 14 to over 2,000. This means that 90 per cent of government payments are now made using the system, with 46 per cent of government departments using it.
Bin Humaidan told Gulf News that payment through credit cards was customers preferred option with the amount reaching nearly Dh1.4 billion.
He also noted the use of the direct debit option grew noticeably from 23,000 transactions in the first half of 2010 to 120,000 transactions in the corresponding period this year.
By connecting with UAE Switch at the UAE Central Bank, Dubai e-Government will allow corporate or individual customers to settle government departments fees through its e-pay portal using ATM cards or through direct debit.
New prospects
Bin Humaidan said: These payment options will open new prospects for customers by expanding the number of banks using the e-pay gateway from five currently to all the 46 banks using the UAE Switch.
The effort is to help customers access government information related to procedures and transactions in a simplified form designed to be understood by the general public, not only by specialists.
Our aim is to ease the lives of people and businesses interacting with the government. It is a combination of centralisation and decentralisation.
He clarified that decentralisation helps individual departments focus on efforts to provide efficient and easy-to-use services to their customers.
Centralisation lifts the burden of government departments by providing them with many core services.
These shared services have helped the departments in their transformation of services as well as in the management of their internal resources with systems such as the government information resources system used by 30 government departments, Bin Humaidan said.
Transactions
55% revenue jump from e-pay service
Dh1.7b amount collected online in first half of the year
90% of government payments made using e-pay
By Zaher Bitar?Staff Reporter
Gulf News 2011. All rights reserved.
