DOHA: The country's banking regulator, Qatar Central Bank (QCB), has launched a unified gateway for e-payment to facilitate individuals as well as companies and state institutions to make payments online.
The service, the first in the entire region to be introduced here, has been titled 'QPAY' through which even people without credit cards but holding bank accounts will be able to pay, for example, utility bills and school fees of their children and make payments for purchases made by them as well.
The centralised e-payment system of the QCB will work through banks. Currently, banks individually provide such services to their customers.
The idea behind the unified e-payment facility is the state's drive to rope in more and more users into its e-services.
The QCB, according to Qatar News Agency, has been running a trial of this system successfully for the past six months and payments to Zakat Fund have been made using this system in collaboration with the e-government.
Sums ordered to be paid by a user using the QCB e-gateway would be directly debited from his or her account and credited into the beneficiary's bank account. Private and community schools have, meanwhile, begun registering parents and guardians who would like to use the new system through their respective banks to pay the fees of their childrenand wards.
© The Peninsula 2012
