While not heavily consumed across the globe electronic banking today is a well known and rather wide spread concept. People in many countries though may not be using e-banking services themselves at least have some remotest idea of what it means and how it works. In western countries e-banking is comparatively popular and practiced by a great number of bank customers. Similar picture can be seen in Eastern Asia as well. Meantime in Middle East e-banking is kind of less adopted though not unknown of course.

According to one research conducted in 2003 by Imtiyaz Al-Sabbagh, IT Director, Oman, there are some objective reasons of the low adoption of the e-banking, especially in what comes to Internet banking. The study reveals that the two main factors hindering Omani customers from getting into the usage of Internet banking services are low speed connection and lack of confidence. The research proposed the government to improve technologies and increase population’s trust to the alternative banking options. At the time the study was released only two major banks of Oman were offering e-banking services. Now there are four banks in the Sultanate which provide Internet and SM-based banking to their consumers.

Just four players

First bank to launch Internet banking services in the Sultanate of Oman in March 2002 was the National Bank of Oman. According to the local media the service offered by the NBO “is available for all NBO retail account holders in Oman.” The site of the bank where customers make their transactions is VeriSign certified.

At the moment NBO allows its customers who use Internet banking to check their balances across all NBO accounts they hold, view and print transaction history as well as pay their utility and credit card bills. In addition the bank provides them the option to make ‘third party transfers’ between NBO customers within the NBO bank network. This service is available to customers absolutely free and can be accessed 24 hours a day. Customers of the bank can avail themselves of these convenient banking options by visiting www.nbo.co.om or through calling NBO’s 24-hour Call Centre on 800-77077.

After NBO electronic banking services facility was launched by BankMuscat (BM) which introduced its online service in June 2002. BM allows its customers to make money transfers between accounts, open a Term Deposit Account on the Internet and order a check book. Besides, BM customers can also check their balances, make online payments with their credit cards, pay for utilities and education fees as well as mobile services, check the volume of all transactions made on their accounts and view their account details per the currency of their choice.

In February 2008 Bank Sohar launched the Al Mumayaz consumer internet banking at a function presided over by Dr Amir Aoudh Al Rawas, managing director, Oman Telecom Company (Oman Mobile). With Al Mumayaz consumer internet banking customers of Bank Sohar can check their real-time account balance, obtain a statement of their last ten transactions and get information about their savings, deposit and loan accounts. They can also check previous transactions and download the account information as spreadsheets or as text files. There are facilities to transfer funds including transfers between a customer’s own accounts, transfers to any Bank Sohar account as also multicurrency fund transfers. Customers can use the internet facility to order check books, request for demand drafts from their accounts, and communicate all types of instructions regarding their account. Within the environment of a secure e-mail service, they can also write and interact with the account manager to resolve any issues related to their account. Customers will also be able to personalize their account and change their profile.

Later in April 2008 it was announced that Bank Sohar introduced SMS banking facility. The SMS banking service comes to a set of ‘Push’ alerts and ‘Pull’ alerts. Customers can subscribe to some or all of them.

With the ‘Pull’ alert facility, customers can perform a wide range of query-based transactions from their mobile phone using the SMS without making a single call. Customers can also view their account information and carry out transactions anytime, anywhere, by sending the bank an SMS in a pre-defined format.

All that customers need to do is key in the specified code for the transaction as a text message and send it to Bank Sohar’s SMS Banking number (90404). They will receive a response in the form of a text message on their mobile phone screen within a short period of time.

The latest local bank who joined others in offering electronic banking services in Oman was Oman Arab Bank. The bank partnered with Farabi Professional Services Group to build a set of Internet banking services. The service seems to be only available to retailers or corporate clients of the bank. According to the available information among other things e-banking provided by the Oman Arab Bank allows customers to make online payments payment for the third party such as PTT and all the mobile operators in the Sultanate.

These are just four local banks that offer electronic banking services to the corporate and retail clients in Oman. There are also 9 foreign banks representatives in the Sultanate and many of them provide Internet based banking too. Still on the whole this sector seems to “glitch” as we find no evidences of e-banking services provided to individual customers and above all there are no common standards in the sector. Every bank offers its own proprietary system for corporate banking purposes. Well, maybe after some time this industry will be high developed in Oman and perhaps the Sultanate will surpass other countries in best class quality e-banking services.