Following the last post...
The industry is incapable at the current period of time to install such an advanced technological vision because of other aspects and requirements that are not met such as the e-payment gateway that is yet to see the light mainly because the Central Bank of Oman is holding out on giving the green light towards the project over doubts that it could cause potential harm more than its advantages towards the Omani economy.
Even though there are many banks that allow you to use an e-payment system through the Internet it doesn't overcome the actual need to be able to use your own credit card in local online transactions despite the many facilities that are made available by banks such BankMuscat; National Bank of Oman; and Oman Arab Bank.
There are also legal issues that are not met in the sense of developing special laws that would encourage online transactions between companies, ministries and consumers alike. Such as the special online laws that have been run by international credit card companies to accept online transactions between various parties such as Visa; MasterCard; and American Express.
This isn't to say that the financial industry is incapable of meeting the requirements but it does say something about planning out a good financial base for such a project to arise not to mention the fact that without such a foundation there is no way such a project would ever succeed.
There is a need for all sectors of the Omani economy and government institutions to gather around for a good serious discussion between them to develop a sound map to actually seeing this project happen by it's deadline.
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Links:
- BankMuscat
- National Bank of Oman (NBO)
- Oman Arab Bank (OAB)
- Visa
- MasterCard
- American Express
Sunday, January 14, 2007
digital Oman - part 2
Posted by Sleepless In Muscat at 15:18
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4 comments:
I was involved in a work team between my bank and Omantel for building an e-payment gateway in Oman back in 2001/02. I left the team in 2003 and as far as I know the Central Bank of Oman had nothing to do with why the e-payment gateway never materialized. It was too expensive to build and Omantel didn't want to shoulder the cost on their own. They were basically looking for someone to pay for it. At some point they decided to abandon the project and link up with the UAE's Comtrust which operated a payment gateway in the Emirates. Omantel wanted to create a link to Comtrust and therefore there would be no actual gateway in Oman. I guess that didn't work out. I later heard that Omantel tried again in 2005 to build their own gateway, but I think their spectacular IPO failure made them put all new capital expenditure on hold and they haven't launched a single new product since then.
Muscati:
I recall that there was some article some time ago about how the CBO was involved in approving an e-payment gateway, although it was never specified as to whom (as an organization) it would be established for.
In addition, current financial data shows that OmanTel - as a publicly shared company on the MSM - is doing fine after the correction procedures that were maintained since share prices shot up during the IPO launch. So I don't know why you say that they are doing badly (unless you have some piece of information you can share here).
All in all, we are not in disagreement in the core topic of the e-payment gateway having not being established for Oman and thus, coming to the question as to: how can we launch an online project such as digital Oman if there was no sound base for it, financially speaking?
Omantel's IPO was a spectacular failure because it was overpriced and most people who bought the share after the flotation lost money. The share opened very high and then kept dropping till it reached below the issue price which is where it has been since then. The IPO was priced at 1.28 per share and the share is now trading at around 1.23. How can that be anything other than a failure.
The CBO thing you mentioned is the RTGS, real-time gross settlement system, which is used as settlement and transfer system between banks. It has nothing to do with commercial payments.
Muscati:
Fair enough; once again, I stand corrected.
Thank you for that information.
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