Goodbye cheques, Hello e-money!

Manama: Bank cheques may soon go out of fashion in Bahrain, with people here getting increasingly comfortable with online and other high-tech methods of fund transfer.

Proving this hypothesis is the latest statistics released by the Information and eGovernment authority, which confirms a 38 per cent increase in financial payments made through National Portal. Through smartphone application, the increase is three-fold, when compared to the prior year.

According to a statement by Information & eGovernment Authority Vice Chief Executive Dr. Zakareya Ahmed AlKhaja, transactions and payments surpassed a total number of 35 million Bahraini Dinars, with an increase of 38 per cent in the national portal (bahrain.bh) and an increase in the number of transactions by 32pc.

Interestingly, the growth in smartphone application payments extended to 187pc - an increase of 204pc compared to 2014.

“Such outcome reflects the growing awareness and trust of users in ePayment government transactions as well as their reliance on easy and quick mechanism that saves time and effort,” added AlKhaja.

Meanwhile, usage of eServices exceeded half a million of unique users for the General Directorate of Traffic (GDT), Electricity and Water Authority (EWA) as well as the Civil Service Bureau (CSB) services, when compared to the last year.

Authority statistics revealed an increase in smart device applications of up to one million usage compared to last year; with the GDT services application topping the list. The application’s usage increased by 507pc along with the ‘GovEmployee’ app which increased by 111pc.

The Information & eGovernment Authority offers 363 active eServices via the national portal (bahrain.bh); together with 30 applications available on the eGovernment Apps Store (bahrain.bh/apps) for Bahrain.