Muscat: The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment Promotion (MoCIIP) stated that effective January 1st, 2022, Oman will make it compulsory for all commercial entities to enable e-payment as an option to pay for goods in order to reduce cash in circulation and promote contactless payment.

To enable this transition MoCIIP along with CBO, have coordinated with banks and other payment service providers to enable all private sector institutions in the procurement of point-of-sale devices “without installation fees or any monthly or annual subscription fees”. Furthermore, the fees for merchant transactions has been clearly specified by the CBO – No more than 1.5% of the invoice can be charged and the maximum fees that can be levied will be capped at 10 OMR via payments by debit cards. This percentage is set at 0.75% for mobile payments via a QR code.

For the first phase of this transition – beginning on the 1st of January 2022, the list of commercial activities that must implement the e-payment scheme include shopping malls, restaurants, cafés, commercial centres, gift markets, jewellery shops, activities in industrial areas, building material activities and tobacco shops.