Infibeam eyes lion’s share of e-commerce payments in Oman; to process transactions for its biggest bank

Digital payments and e-commerce technology platform company Infibeam Avenues, which had forayed into Oman last month partnering with its Bank Dhofar to process online payments for its customers, is aggressively tapping into the market further. In order to boost its e-commerce sector, the company has now inked a pact with the Bank of Muscat to process online card transactions of various payment networks for the bank through its digital payment solution CCAvenue Payment Gateway Service. It would also help the bank to authorise online payments for its merchants. “We are offering the next-gen payment processing services under our flagship brand CCAvenue in Oman market to boost e-commerce sector there by collaborating with the Bank of Muscat. It is the country’s biggest bank,” Vishal Mehta, Managing Director, Infibeam Avenues told Financial Express Online.

The tie-ups with the two banks would arguably put Infibeam in the pole position in the race to acquire transaction volumes in Oman. The company said in a statement that the partnerships “will mean that a lion’s share of Oman’s processing volumes will now flow through Infibeam Avenues systems.” Bank of Muscat and Bank Dhofar are the biggest banks of Oman and are learnt to process around 90 per cent of the online transactions. According to Statista, the Bank of Muscat was the leading commercial bank in 2019 in terms of total assets of $32 billion followed by Bank Dhofar with $11.24 billion in total assets. “Online (channel) is growing fast in that (Oman) market even as post-Covid more transactions across the world have picked up. As a result, merchants will always find the appetite to be able to sell products and services online,” said Mehta.

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“At Bank Muscat, we are mindful of our reputation as the biggest bank in Oman. So we believe in staying at the forefront by providing the best 2 possible services to our customers by deploying cutting edge technologies in a timely manner,” said Amjad Al Lawati, Assistant General Manager ‐ Cards & eBanking at Bank Muscat in the statement. The mobile penetration in Oman is close to 150 per cent while over 80 per cent population uses the internet and more than 70 per cent of mobile connections are broadband. Oman’s population is around 5 million currently. Infibeam already has a presence in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The company had reported a 58.6 per cent fall in consolidated net profit at Rs 12 crore for Q1 FY21 down from Rs 29 crore in the year-ago period. The revenues stood at Rs 103 crore — 44.6 per cent down from Rs 186 crore in Q1 FY20.