Joining the line up for the World Cup tourist boom
Vodafone Qatar’s iPay and Ooredoo’s Ooredoo Money can now support mobile payment systems under the supervision of Qatar Central Bank’s (QCB) the FIFA World Cup Host begins to embrace digital culture.
This is a radical move, reports Coin Geek, because the government has previously banned digital assets and that particular aspect of the law has not been relaxed. By issuing the first pair of permits though the central bank could be opening the door to more mobile payment service providers.
The QCB said the move should stimulate the growth of the financial technology sector and widen financial inclusion with approval for other digital payment service providers set to follow. The approval is part of the country’s preparation to host one of the biggest sporting events, the FIFA World Cup, in November this year. Qatar has been enlisting more payment systems for the host of tourists that it intends to accommodate.
Last week, QCB announced that it had approved several commercial banks to support Google Wallet, allowing their clients to make mobile payments with Google Pay. The banks include Dukhan Bank, Qatar Islamic Bank, Qatar International Islamic Bank, and Qatar National Bank. Similarly, QCB also now accepts all digital wallet solutions for cards, such as Samsung Pay and Apple Pay.
While it is pushing to welcome digital payments, Qatar has been enforcing a ban on digital assets trading and storage since 2020, as have other countries in the region, namely Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco and Tunisia. In June 2021 Mansoor bin Ebrahim Al-Mahmoud , CEO of sovereign wealth fund for Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) told Bloomberg that Qatar still has no interest in digital currencies and it would concentrate its investments on blockchain. QCB Governor H.E. Sheikh Bandar bin Mohammed bin Saoud Al Thani has dismissed digital assets as “too risky and volatile”.
Instead QCB is working on a central bank digital currency (CBDC) which it hopes will help digitise payments further. First disclosed in March, the QCB said in a June progress update that the development of the digital currency was still in the “foundation stage.” The central bank governor said the QCB was still exploring the pros and cons of issuing a CBDC while looking at the right technology and platform to launch it.