Small business enterprises in Egypt wishing to transact business with Amazon Payment Services, a payment processing service in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, have all reasons to do so after the Service provider announced that it will waive all fees for the new businesses.
This latest move is in line with Amazon Payment Services’ mission of providing business with simple, affordable and trusted online payment experiences.
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It is a support initiative undertaken by the Amazon payment services in line with an initiative launched by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) of encouraging the transition to digital payments in Egypt.
This has seen Amazon Payment Services waiving all account setup and maintenance fees for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) for its digital payment service throughout the month of Ramadan until the end of June 2021.
To implement this policy Amazon Payment Services is partnering with several Commercial banks in Egypt such as Commercial International Bank (CIB) and Banque Misr, as well as Robusta and zVendo.
The Managing Director of Amazon Payment Services Omar Soudodi lauding the initiative said that he was pleased to be helping the CBE’s drive to assist Egyptian businesses to digitize and scale online.
“At a time when many small businesses are facing unprecedented challenges in the face of COVID-19’s restrictions and social distancing measures, the importance of building their online presence has never been greater. Enabling seamless, reliable and affordable digital transactions for Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) will help them to boost their revenue streams.” The initiative is part of CBE’s continued efforts to support the economy during the ongoing pandemic.
The Head of Retail & Branches at Banque Misr, Ihab Dorra says the ongoing digitization initiatives demonstrates huge success as the country has achieved the highest growth rate in e-commerce & QR code transactions in Egypt Y2020.
“Our strategy includes a focus on fintech and we are looking forward to utilizing our partnership with Amazon Payment Services to make facilitating payments even easier and will be offering our merchants some attractive benefits such as no setup fees or monthly fees, and exclusive rates for card and wallet payment. This comes in light of the Bank’s strategic vision to facilitate payment transactions for Egyptian citizens and in supporting the state efforts towards financial inclusion.”
According to Mohamed Noaman the Head of Payment Acceptance at CIB Egypt, is One of the core objectives of CIB’s digital transformation agenda was to expand payment acceptance to cover a wide range of customers in the local market, Adding that CIB’s Payment Acceptance team was able to enhance its payment solutions through various studies and surveys concentrating on e-commerce development, which was embedded into the strategic planning.
The Founder and CEO of zVendo, Tarek Bakry, on his part said that the e-commerce sector currently is one of the fastest growing sectors, with 300-500% witnessed growth and the reason behind necessity of online selling.
Amazon Payment Services processes transactions for thousands of businesses across multiple industries, ranging from aviation to travel and tourism, retail, insurance, real estate, government, and more. With such a diverse customer base, it has built strong expertise that supports businesses at every scale, from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) looking to establish their online presence to large-scale enterprises requiring a dependable payment service to handle high volumes of transactions safely.
Amazon Payments also makes it possible for a merchant to automatically charge a payment method that is stored in your Amazon Payments Account for your future purchases and payments. Some examples include: A recurring payment for a subscription. A recurring payment of a usage-based bill (for example, your mobile phone bill). Amazon Payment Services has agreements in place with several local payment networks. As a result, you can offer your customers the ability to pay using a range of popular local payment methods from debit cards right through to installment agreements.
