The UAE’s Ministry of Finance (MoF), represented by the e-Dirham team, is set to enhance all the facilities to pay for government services through e-dirham system.

It will provide all the necessary technical support for the system with specifically by growing the number of auditors for government companies; conducting specialised studies which aim to identify the system’s activities and transaction processes; increasing daily transactions and continually assessing the geographical location of the sale and shipment centres for e-dirham cards within the UAE.

Saeed Rashid Al Yateem, assistant undersecretary of Resources and Budget Sector at MoF, stressed the ministry’s commitment to implementing an effective operational plan to support the e-dirham system.

MoF’s role is to facilitate the processing of transactions for e-dirham customers.

With regards to the sale and shipment centres, the ministry has added 25 new ATM and cash deposits machines to the e-dirham network across the UAE, bringing the total number of machines to 89. These machines allow customers to easily charge and recharge their e-dirham card.

The National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) allocated 530 ATM and cash deposit machines offering the same services. This brings the total number of machines offering e-dirham services to 629.

The number of POS and e-collection machines has reached 4,000, accepting all types of cards including ‘Al Hasila’ e-Dirham card, cards issued by another banks or cards supported by Visa or MasterCard.

The Ministry is also working on recharge cards, scheduled to launch in the near future. It is also committed to providing innovative solutions and services to maintain the e-dirham project’s ambitious and nationwide focus. MoF recently launched 10 advanced e-kiosks which are more sophisticated and provide more services, allowing e-dirham customers to pay for government services.

E-Dirham services are provided across all 126 NBAD branches within the UAE, with selected branches in Umm al Quwain, 42 service facilitation centers, 62 Aafaq Islamic Finance branches, and 765 printing houses.

“The studies and audits conducted by the ministry on the e-dirhams fees and operations enable us to keep up with the latest technologies and determine the future growth and requirements of ATM and cash deposit machines. These improvements stop customers paying extra charges when charging or recharging their e-dirham cards,” said Al Yateem.

Saif Al Shehhi, senior managing director, UAE Government and VVIP Clients, NBAD: “As a strategic partner of the ministry and the e-dirham project, NBAD works in accordance with the approved plan to further develop and upgrade the system to eventually become part of a global electronic payment network.

“Despite the youth of the system, the project has already accomplished several successes with regard to the technologies used to collect government services fees, and the geographical expansion of the system across the UAE.”

Al Yateem also highlighted that the studies carried out by the ministry support efficient and continual upgrades.

“The e-dirham system aims to raise the level of efficiency in delivering government services electronically, as well as reduce the costs and efforts needed for service providers and customers to benefit from it,” he said.

“In fact, results from the Ministry’s statistical study on the processing time of a transaction showed that it takes less than one second per transaction with the use of POS, compared to 1.18 seconds through the website,” he added. - TradeArabia News Service