The Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq announced, on Saturday, a record increase in electronic payment operations from 800 billion to 2 trillion dinars in one year, noting that government payments reached 912 billion dinars during July 2024.
This came during his participation in a specialized workshop on accelerating the transition towards electronic payment, organized by the “Osool” Foundation for Economic Development and Sustainable Development, followed by Shafaq News Agency.
Al-Alaq said during his speech at the workshop that the Central Bank of Iraq works alongside the government program and the Prime Minister’s direction to support electronic payment, and we are proud of what we have achieved so far, indicating that in 2023, the amounts processed through the national switchboard witnessed a significant increase, reflecting the development of the infrastructure and the expansion in the use of electronic payment channels and the impact of the campaign launched by the Prime Minister to activate electronic payment operations in general, and in the government sector in particular.
He added that these upward trends continued to develop in 2024, as the amounts processed in the national switchboard systems reached more than 2 trillion Iraqi dinars in July alone, compared to 800 billion dinars in the same month in 2023, and became 1 trillion dinars in January 2024, and government payments witnessed an additional increase, reaching 912 billion Iraqi dinars last July compared to 287 million dinars in the same month in 2023.
Al-Alaq pointed out that payments at fuel stations in Baghdad alone increased significantly, recording more than 44 billion dinars in July of this year, compared to 183 million dinars in July 2023, and 4.5 billion dinars in December 2023.
Al-Alaq revealed a huge increase in the number of POS points of sale to reach more than 50,000 points of sale this year, compared to approximately 11,000 POS points at the beginning of 2023, and thousands of them in government institutions after they were zero before the launch of the campaign in June 2023.
Al-Alaq expressed his hope that government institutions would adopt the establishment of specialized units in electronic payment technologies to work on following up and developing this important aspect.
shafaq.com
