Dubai eGovernment's mPay generates Dhs8.5m in 2012

mPay achieved an increase of 11 % and 39 % compared to 2011 in terms of amounts collected and number of transactions respectively.

mPay enables customers to inquire about and pay for some government services, either through an iPhone app that combines all the services in one place for implementation in one step or via SMS, thereby providing ease and convenience to users.

mPay generated Dhs8,530,379 through 36,325 transactions by the end of 2012 compared with Dhs7,651,198 through 26,174 transactions in the previous year. Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), Roads & Transport Authority (RTA) and Dubai Police were the top three government entities respectively in terms of the electronically collected amounts, while RTA, DEWA and Dubai Police were the top three government entities respectively in terms of the number of transactions achieved.

Commenting on these results, Ahmad Bin Humaidan, Director General of Dubai eGovernment, said: "mPay is part of our initiative to provide eServices through innovative channels with the aim of facilitating government transactions for the public and businesses in Dubai. These results clearly indicate a change in the habits of the public and their move towards mobile payments for completing government transactions."

Bin Humaidan added: "This service allows both corporate and individual customers to inquire about and pay the fees of services of the participating entities through SMS to 4488 or the iPhone app. It covers Salik recharge from RTA, payment of traffic fines from Dubai Police and payment of electricity bills from DEWA.

Bin Humaidan pointed out that Dubai eGovernment is currently considering the expansion of individual and corporate beneficiaries from this service, either by introducing new departments and entities or adding new services of concern to customers.

mPay has the feature of auto-payment of the government services provided by the portal regularly (daily, weekly, monthly or at a specific date for payment).

They also allow control over the minimum balance and the maximum payment/recharge. Users can optimize the "multiple accounts" feature, which allows them to use the service settings to support multiple accounts of one government service.

For example, customers can recharge the Salik account of more than one car from their mPay account. The iPhone app can be downloaded free from Apple's Appstore.