Driving Iraq’s Financial Sector

Over the course of these 17 years, Qi Card has evolved into a quintessential symbol of financial innovation, specialising adeptly in biometric ID cards and cutting-edge electronic financial services. Conceived through a forward-thinking partnership that seamlessly blends private and public interests, Qi Card stands out as a formidable driving force in Iraq’s dynamic financial sector. This collaborative synergy empowers Qi Card to harness the resilience and ingenuity of the private sector, harmoniously complemented by the stability and extensive reach of the government sector.

Boasting a dedicated team of over 1,200 highly trained professionals, Qi Card’s MasterQi has adeptly navigated the ever-changing landscape of fintech, emerging triumphantly as a premier provider of biometric ID cards and electronic financial services in Iraq. The amalgamation of expertise from Iraqi and international specialists in finance, banking, and technical management serves as a testament to Qi Card’s unwavering commitment to excellence.

MasterQi integrates advanced biometric card verification capabilities, enhancing security and ensuring a seamless user experience for secure and efficient transactions.

Blending Technology And Innovation

At the heart of Qi Card’s revolutionary advancement is its innovative payment solution, a trailblazing approach that has transformed the dynamics of the Iraqi market. This pioneering system, the first of its kind, functions based on fingerprint-based transactions, fundamentally altering the way salaries and grants are distributed in Iraq.

Qi Card’s visionary outlook transcends mere transactions and it aspires to foster an Iraq where cashless transactions become the prevailing norm. The Qi Card system, characterised by a harmonious blend of convenience and heightened security facilitated by biometric identification, plays a pivotal role in fortifying a more resilient and secure financial ecosystem for its users.

Secure And Convenient Financial Transactions

At the forefront of Qi Card’s offerings stands the flagship product, the MasterCard, symbolizing the epitome of secure and convenient financial transactions. This versatile card empowers users to seamlessly receive salaries, government payments, and partake in diverse financial activities.

The widespread acclaim garnered by the Qi MasterCard is further amplified by the user-friendly Qi Services mobile application, which plays a pivotal role in advancing financial inclusion across Iraq. This app not only affords users heightened control over their finances but also ensures transparency, rendering Qi Card a preferred and contemporary choice for individuals seeking modern financial solutions.

Qi Services mobile application also provides customers with convenient access to credit products, empowering them to manage their financial needs efficiently.

Cooperation With Western Union

A pivotal juncture in the annals of Qi Card’s history is marked by its strategic alliance with Western Union, a renowned global leader in cross-border money transfers. This collaborative venture has not only elevated Qi Card’s functionality but has also empowered users with seamless access to Western Union’s robust network for secure and efficient international transfers.

The integration of Western Union services into the Qi Card platform signifies a notable stride forward, providing users with a dependable solution for global financial transactions. This strategic partnership underscores Qi Card’s unwavering commitment to delivering comprehensive and cutting-edge financial solutions.

Championing Financial Inclusion

Opting for a Qi Card extends beyond the tangible advantages of utilising a user-friendly app. It has evolved into a powerful symbol of financial empowerment in Iraq, actively championing financial inclusion by granting access to financial services to individuals who were previously underserved by conventional banking systems.

Reshaping The Landscape Of Financial Services

Since its establishment in 2007 to its current status as a premier fintech company, Qi Card’s trajectory vividly exemplifies the transformative influence of technology in reshaping the landscape of financial services. Through its wide array of products, strategic collaborations, and unwavering commitment to user empowerment, Qi Card stands as a pivotal force in shaping the future of financial technology in Iraq.

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Reportedly, STC violated Article 5 of the competition law as it imposed certain conditions on sale and purchase processes with dealing with another entity and for which it was fined. It is also reported that STC appealed the decision, however, the administrative appeal court upheld the committee’s resolution on fining the Saudi-listed telecom operator.

Last month, it was reported that STC agreed to sell 15 percent of its stake in its subsidiary Saudi Digital Payments Company to Western Union for $200 million.

In this regard, STC said in a bourse filing, “In the long term, the financial impact is expected to be positive. The deal has no impact on the profit or loss statement of STC,” STC. The completion of the deal is conditional upon obtaining all regulatory approvals from relevant authorities.”

Earlier this year, it was also reported that both STC and Vodafone signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for STC to acquire 55 percent in Vodafone Egypt. However, STC recently said in a statement that the MoU it had signed with Vodafone International Group had expired without the two sides reaching an agreement.

The deal would have been STC’s biggest ever and it would have valued Vodafone Egypt at around $4.4 billion. According to media reports, STC was engaged in discussion with Vodafone to subsequently reduce the $2.4 billion price agreed earlier in January for the acquisition, but no agreement was reached.

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Airtel Payments Bank and Airtel Africa are subsidiaries of Bharti Airtel. The new real-time payment service will have millions of Airtel Payments Bank accounts in India and mobile wallet offering across 14 African countries. 

Western Union and Bharti Airtel’s combined service is expected to launch this year. 

Western Union’s partnership with Airtel Payments Bank in India will ensure seamless money transfers in the country. Likewise, its partnership with Airtel Africa will allow more than 15 million Airtel Money mobile wallet users in Nigeria, Uganda, Gabon, Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Madagascar, Kenya, Congo, Niger, Tchad, Rwanda and Seychelles, to accept overseas money transfers without any hassle.

Raghunath Mandava, CEO of Airtel Africa, said in a statement, “This partnership will give our customers the convenience and security of directly receiving and sending remittances from their Airtel mobile money wallets. They will now be automatically credited and debited via their Airtel mobile money wallets on their phone and can immediately access the funds to pay bills or merchants and transfer funds to family and friends or convert to cash from the widespread Airtel Money agents, kiosks and branches.”

Airtel Payments Bank has established more than 500,000 banking points across India. Airtel Africa is a leading telecom and mobile money services provider across 14 African countries. 

Currently, Western Union has its presence in more than 100 countries, with 40 banking and payment partnerships. 

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Until the year before, the system was different: customers had to visit Dewa’s customer happiness centres to collect their refund—but now that is changing. Through this service, the big trouble with receiving the refund is no longer a cause for inconvenience to them—like what His Excellency Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, managing director and CEO of Dewa, implied: The new service will “provide the best government services that make customers’ lives easier and reduce the number of visitors to government offices by 80% by 2019.”

Likewise, for Western Union—customer convenience has become a ‘key’ factor—more so because it is often used to transfer cash between places. Thus, one reason the partnership is promising because Western Union has a strong presence with ‘more than 5,000 agent locations across the Middle East’—which is obviously favourable to all parties. So far, its digital services have been launched in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman.

“Globally, we have plans to be in 200 countries and are working in every continent to ensure the success of our digital strategy,” Hatem Sleiman, vice president Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan at Western Union, said in an interview with Muscat Daily. “I believe we will be able to cover the entire Middle East region with digital services in the next couple of years because our aim is to be in 200 countries by 2020.

“We were impressed when people in the Gulf region quickly adopted these new digital services. We have realised that the customers in the region prefer digital services to send money 24/7 to avoid the hassles of visiting retail outlets. Western Union would continue to innovate on various fronts and while doing this, customer satisfaction remains our top priority. We have been innovating our technologies for both digital services and retail outlets. With fast evolving technology, the speed of sending remittances is improving continuously.”

Seizing the opportunity by constantly developing creative ways to build fast and reliable transfer of funds and payments, Western Union is working toward providing solutions that will improve the quality of people’s lives, which supports the UAE Government’s efforts to promote innovation, Jean Claude Farah, president of global payments at Western Union said.

This digital service in its prime will use ‘innovative tools’ coupled with ‘the highest standards of efficiency and reliability’, to swiftly process all customer transactions at any point of time using Dewa’s multiple smart channels. Even though, that is not a world-first implementation, it still stands as a medium to benefit customers in many ways.

Customers will get mileage out of this service, if they continue to use it extensively. In the last quarter—the adoption rate for Dewa’s smart services touched 93%—meaning that it was well received by the majority of customers—and they had reason to. In addition to Western Union, Dewa is also collaborating with ‘other public and private organisations to provide multiple options and innovative services’ for its customers and to make ‘Dubai the city of the future’ ahead of other global cities through government innovation, Farah said.

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Ripple on CoinDesk said, “This ground-breaking pilot program is the first of its kind to be launched by a central bank. Participating banks from the [Kingdom of Saudi Arabia] will use xCurrent to instantly settle payments sent into and out of the country, with greater transparency and lower costs.”

Most GCC countries are focused on fintechs to enhance their banking efficiency. UAE’s money transfer and forex giant Western Union has also partnered with Ripple to push real-time cross-border payments using blockchain.

Western Union CEO Hikmet Ersek told Bloomberg, “We are looking especially in the processing settlement and working capital optimization, also in the regulation part, on the compliance part on the blockchain capabilities. And we do test, we do have some tests with Ripple.”

Saudi Arabian could easily save up to US$400mn each year using the blockchain software, according to Moody’s Investor Service.

The Moody’s Report reads “Moody’s estimates that even a 10 percent reduction in the cost of completing and managing a cross-border transaction will translate to savings of roughly $200m-$400m per year system-wide.”

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Tom Groenfeldt

January 7, 2015: With over 7,000 attendees from 2,250-plus companies and coming from more than 60 countries, Money 20/20 in Las Vegas offered the chance to meet with just about anyone who counts in financial technology. For many, the program, even with keynotes by CEOs from top players like First Data, American Express and Western Union, took second place to the networking opportunities.

Josh Reich, founder and CEO of Simple, the banking, budgeting and savings company — sold to BBVA earlier this year — had time for just one session — the one he presented with BBVA’s executive director for strategy, Jay Reinemann. The rest of the time he was in meetings, including an update from the Federal Reserve on improving the payments system in the US. Reich values the show’s networking; he said the foundations of the BBVA acquisition were laid at Money 20/20 last year.

Dan Latimore, senior vice-president of Celent’s banking group, likes the efficiency of being able to meet dozens of people in one place over three or four days. In addition to attending track sessions and keynotes, he had set up more than 20 appointments.

“There’s no substitute for face-to-face meetings, and we were heavily booked, although we also blocked time for keynotes. In addition, I had four or five serendipitous meetings, which you can’t get anywhere else. That is part of the fun too. The conference has very high quality people, from early stage companies to incumbents.”

In his blog, he noted the emphasis on partnerships at this year’s show.

“Discover, Visa, and a host of others mentioned their eagerness to team with other members of the ecosystem to drive more activity in ways that are better, faster, and/or cheaper.”

Latimore was more skeptical about POS (point of sale) systems: “…why does every POS terminal still look like it came from 1985 (Poynte and Clover being two exceptions)?”

KBW (Keefe, Bruyette & Wood) sent three analysts to the conference and developed a detailed 10-page report for its customers, which concluded in a high-level overview:

“Last year’s conference dealt with a lot of concepts around mobile payments and companies’ strategies, though there was limited traction. This year, the promise of Apple Pay seemed to be the rallying cry despite limited progress in mobile thus far…”

The investment bank analysts were impressed by the scope of the conference.

“Having 7,000 fintech people that touch every aspect of payments is quite a feat,” said Sanjay Sakhran, a specialist in card payments processing at KBW. “It fosters significant group think and also allows for a group dialogue among all the key constituencies involved in the payments chain.”

Networking, networking, networking

I was standing near the FIS stand on Wednesday when Marcy Liu, marketing director for Geoswift, stopped to talk. I had met her along with the company’s executive team the previous day when they described how they conduct two-way payments in and out of China. Licensed by the central bank, they serve everyone from Western companies buying Chinese goods to Chinese parents paying their children’s tuition at universities abroad.

As we were talking, Peter Gordon, who heads the FIS real-time payments network, Paynet, walked over. I have interviewed him several times on US payment issues and the way Paynet will connect 1,000 member FIS client banks in real-time by the end of this year. I introduced him to Liu who explained what Geoswift does.

Gordon’s interest was immediate; FIS has just launched a remittance service, he said, and the two of them began exchanging information. That’s just a snapshot of how the conference works.

A VC executive from the Netherlands expressed regret that he hadn’t planned his conference — the size of Money 20/20 overwhelmed him

“Planning ahead of time is critical,” said Celent’s Latimore. “Block the content you want to see, plan meetings, and leave some time for serendipity, on the floor or at a meal. Money 20/20 has found a sweet spot of an expanding eco system of players who are eager to partner. They are casting a much wider net and creating a place to see what is happening in payments. The number of merchants was astounding. The founders tapped into the right concept at the right time and executed it ferociously.”

Change in venue

Money20/20, which was bursting at the seams in the Aria this year, will move to the much larger Venetian next year and expects an even bigger conference. It has entered into a multi-year partnership with i2i to expand its US event and launch Money 20/20 Europe in the spring of 2016.

“Our partnership includes acquisition by i2i, with Money 20/20 continuing to operate under its current leadership, including founders Anil D Aggarwal and Jonathan Weiner. Our entire team has worked under this partnership to produce our 2014 event and will continue to do so for many years to come to deliver the exceptional experiences our attendees, sponsors and other partners have come to expect,” the company said in a release.

Highlights

Money 20/20 provided a great venue for startups — the number of 20-somethings wandering around with CEO titles on their name badges was impressive.

But in addition to the innovative startups, incumbents weighed in with their institutional power and their own investments in innovation.

Western Union unperturbed

Although a slew of international money transfer companies have launched with the promise to reduce the costs of traditional players, Western Union CEO Hikmet Ersek isn’t worried.

“I’ve heard for 15 years that people want to eat our lunch,” said Eersek, who didn’t appear worried. “Our competence is moving currencies across borders; 80 percent of our transactions are out of the US. It is not easy once the money moves across borders. We are fast and reliable, how the customer wants it and we have been doing that for 160 years.”

Western Union moves cash to cash and settles in 120 currencies in 500,000 locations, and now it has moved into digital transfers as well.

Existing companies also have scale. Western Union has set up a digital lab in San Francisco that now has 250 people, bigger than Zoom, a digital money transfer service whose stock has roughly halved in the last year.

Ersek said 80 percent of digital customers are new to the company. It is spending 3.5 percent of revenues on compliance, he added.

“AML (anti-money laundering) should be a competitive edge for us. Many financial institutions are coming to us saying this is a hard environment, can we help them.”

Western Union fills a service gap, he added.

“Seventy-five percent of our customers globally are banked, but 100 percent are underserved. There’s a big difference. In Egypt, you can open a bank account easily at the post office, but it’s not easy to do something with that account.”

Other payment enablers

Although AngelList, the Silicon Valley crowdfunding platform, lists 1,459 payment startups, Hill Ferguson, COO PayPal, thinks the opportunity in digital payments is huge. “Over 85 percent of payments still occur in cash.”

American Express entered a partnership with Walmart for Bluebird, a way to bank, save and spend with a card and mobile phone. It also launched Serve, a prepaid card. Recently, the company launched a way to use Amex points to pay at McDonald’s and introduced OptBlue, a service aimed at small and mid-sized businesses.

“We are changing the Amex brand and making it more inclusive,” America Express CEO Kenneth Chenault said. “There has been no diminution of the brand; in fact, it has been enhanced….90 percent of the customers we bring in on Bluebird are new to our franchise and 54 percent are under 35.”

Amazon Payment Services

Amazon guarantees increased sales or it will refund up to $100,000 in fees, said Tom Taylor, vice-president.

Amazon’s “Login and Pay with Amazon”, where consumers use the payment and shipping information stored in their Amazon account to pay at other online merchants, is guaranteed to increase a company’s sales in 30 days or Amazon will refund all fees up to $100,000, said Taylor.

The Amazon payment button at an online shopping site lets customers pay with three clicks, with no need to enter their information if they are already an existing Amazon customer. AllSaints, the edgy London clothing merchant, saw a 34 percent increase in conversions and a 24 percent increase in their shopping basket when the company started using the Amazon payment methods.

Rich Ascott, AllSaints global director for digital, said that tens of thousands of transactions went through the Amazon payment services without generating any comment. Only in late October did one customer remark that paying with Amazon was much quicker. Nobody else, apparently, gave a second thought to using Amazon to pay for attire purchased through an East London company’s online site.

Bitcoin and Japanese regulators

Benjamin Lawsky, Superintendent of Financial Services for the State of New York, said his department launched an extensive inquiry into virtual currencies in August 2013 and now has a team of about 15 people working on the topic.

When Mt. Gox, the world’s largest bitcoin exchange, suddenly stopped trading in February, Lawsky was in Basel for a meeting of financial regulators. Lawsky said he took aside the Japanese regulators at the meeting and offered assistance; he said he would send New York’s entire virtual currency team to help. “Unfortunately, the Japanese regulators had no idea what I was talking about.”

Cybercrime

Marc Goodman, author of Future Crimes due out in February, introduced a new abbreviation:  CaaS — Crime as a Service.

In Brazilian favelas, CDs with stolen credit card numbers are sold with SLA guarantees that 80 percent will work or you get your money back. They also provide tech support for users who have troubles. “Crime is becoming software, it is becoming automated.”

Startups

A dozen or so fintech startups got the equivalent of speed-dating with the audience — six-minute presentations spread over two days. Two had found uses for the digital spare change — the amount left over if consumers round up their mobile payment to the next full dollar.

Spare will use the money to provide food for the poor, or food insecure in the words of founder Andra Tomas who said that 10 cents can provide a meal through a New York food bank. Spare has a deal for donors and restaurants — the third time a consumer rounds up in the same restaurant in a single month, she gets a free cocktail. Continued patronage can result in a free appetizer. The phone app also shows how much a donor has given and the results for the program in the city. Restaurants get a relatively low-cost loyalty program — cheaper than Groupon — not to mention the feel-good factor.

Acorns, another company in pursuit of digital spare change, funnels it into an  ETF-based investment program for participants. The firm said it signed up 250,000 people in just a few months; half are active users. They can also contribute real money to their investment fund at any time, and a simple graphical interface allows them to choose the risk/reward levels they feel like. Ease of use is paramount — one new participant said he signed up while waiting in line at Starbucks.

Another innovator in the speed dating was Viewpost, which offers secure electronic invoicing and payment, including negotiation over discounts for early payments. It announced a partnership with U.S. Bank to provide a solution for small businesses. It is entering a business with established players, including Ariba, now part of SAP, Traxpay and Basware.

ModoPayments provides a way to combine payments, including credit cards, loyalty points, coupons, gift cards and merchant offers, into a single payment card on a phone that can also offer shoppers loyalty points through Beacon for simply stepping into a store. Companies can distribute gift cards and drive traffic to brands or stores while learning more about their customers.

24-hour Hackathon

The 24-hour Hackathon ahead of the conference drew 450 participants. A team of three people who did not know each other before Hackathon won the top prize with Payperless. Like all five top winners, they received $20,000 and also got to present their solution, which lets merchants accept bitcoins without changing their payment systems, to the conference. Taking turns in a smooth presentation, Aldo Briano, Veronica Borges and Eduardo Medina explained how they used APIs to Mercury Payments and chain.com to build their application.

“Our solution will enable merchants to accept a bitcoin payment as easily as accepting a payment through a gift card, and we see this as the future of payments,” said Briano. “We were able to convert bitcoin to a payment method the merchant already understands.”

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