FinTech to transform Oman’s financial sector

Business Wednesday 07/March/2018 17:36 PM
By: Times News Service
FinTech to transform Oman’s financial sector

Muscat: Financial Technologies (FinTech) is expected to revolutionise the way the Omani banking and financial sectors work as Oman's first comprehensive e-payment platform goes online next week.
Thawani Pay, Oman's first-ever FinTech company, will bring Oman one step closer to a cashless society, where all payments can be made through smartphones. But this is just the beginning of a revolution that can create hundreds of new business models, Majid Al Amri, Founder of Thawani Technologies, said.
“The way transactions work will never be the same again. It will be different. The Thawani Pay platform is an application using which everything, from e-payments to business analytics, can be done. The platform is ready and will begin running from March 13. This will be the start of a lot of new business models in the future. It is going to put power in the hands of the consumer,” he said.
Thawani Pay is a platform where customers can register their bank cards and will therein make payments from the app using an alias. Unlike other online transactions currently in use, the app will ask for a password for any transaction. A consumer can register credit or debit cards or use it as a mobile wallet, while a merchant can track activities from staffing to operations using the app.
“We will launch the first phase next week. There is a lot more to come. Our second phase will incorporate Artificial Intelligence (AI) and analytics into our platform. So, merchants can monitor consumer behaviour to better serve them, receive reports and advisories on their business plan, and find ways to improve their business model. This is already under process,” Al Amri said.
He added that Thawani Pay is a 100 per cent Omani company with a technical partner abroad. “The idea started back in 2007-2008, when services such as Apple Pay weren't available. We had to wait a long time to finally begin this,” Al Amri, a computer engineer, said.
“I believe there is huge talent in Oman in this sector and we need to find the right talent to do this job. With our experience, they can do the job better than many others. So, we are looking forward to expanding our company with more young Omanis,” he added.