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‘iGA’ Signs MOU with “BENEFIT”

  • article
15 Apr 2018

The Information & eGovernment Authority (iGA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with The BENEFIT Company (BENEFIT) to develop the ePayment services of government transactions and provide services that facilitate management of processes on banking and other entities in order to improve performance and reduce cost – which goes in line with Government Action Plan objectives and aspirations of the Economic Vision 2030.


The MOU was signed, during a Press Conference held yesterday, by iGA Chief Executive Mr. Mohamed Ali AlQaed together with BENEFIT CEO Mr. Abdulwahed AlJanahi and Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) Executive Director of Banking Supervision Mr. Khalid Hamad. Attendance also included several senior officials representing the banking sector.

On such occasion, AlQaed stressed the importance of adopting innovative solutions delivered by national companies to public entities, including Benefit, in an aim to raise quality and efficiency of government eServices as well as reduce expenses, efforts and time while ensuring the delivery of high-quality, effective services in line with directives of ICT eGovernance Committee. The MOU will enable the capability to pay via the BenefitPay service to renew ID cards, as well as link ePayments to government entities via BENEFIT and include them in iGA’s National Payment Aggregator (NPA).

“BENEFIT is pleased to sign the MOU given our strategic direction of cooperating with various entities and focus on national initiatives that support Bahrain’s Economic Vision. Collaborating with the Information & eGovernment Authority is of vital importance to us as it delivers exceptional services and links to several other government entities. Through this agreement, we aim to launch significant joint projects to cater to both public and private sectors; starting with the Electronically Know Your Customer (eKYC) initiative, in addition to providing credit reports via the national portal (Bahrain.bh) in cooperation with the Central Bank of Bahrain,” stated Mr. AlJanahi.

The agreement aims to strengthen the cooperation between iGA and BENEFIT within the IT sector and ePayment services as an ePay service mechanism will be developed for government services across the various online channels provided by iGA. Additionally, study the potential electronic options to identify the possibility of conducting more financial transactions and bill payments.

Furthermore, improving the quality of periodic financial reports - issued by the Authority and sent to government entities – by launching Credit Reports Service via the national portal and eKiosks in collaboration with CBB and enable reports’ sharing to determine the value of ePayments across all public entities. This report will include the total completed online payments through all available ePayment channels.

It is also worth mentioning that this MOU has been deemed necessary taking into consideration CBB’s directions to issue policies that support the creation of innovative solutions and enable the growth of Fintech in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

The BENEFIT Company is specialized in developing innovative solutions for ePayment processes,  providing and managing multiple eChannels for bill payment and financial transfers as well as managing Bahrain Credit Reference Bureau.