QNB Syria Issues the Country's First Locally Issued Card on Mastercard

QNB Syria has issued the first payment card produced inside the country, and it carries the Mastercard network. Qualified customers can use the card for payments in Syria and abroad, because it is accepted internationally.

From acceptance to issuance

The launch changes the shape of the work Mastercard and QNB Group do together in Syria. The two companies began with card acceptance. Issuing cards locally is the stage that follows, and it builds on steps already taken in the market: enabling international card acceptance, then completing Syria's first transaction on an internationally issued Mastercard card in more than 15 years, routed through international point-of-sale systems. The first transaction on the newly issued card processed smoothly at an international terminal.

Acceptance and issuance pull in opposite directions, which is why the order of those steps matters. Acceptance let terminals in Syria read cards issued elsewhere. Issuance puts accounts held at a Syrian bank onto rails that merchants in other countries already use. A customer of a local bank does not need a foreign-issued card to pay outside Syria.

The earlier milestone deserves to be kept separate from this one. Completing a transaction on an internationally issued Mastercard card in Syria after a gap of more than 15 years showed that terminals in the country could read cards from outside. The card announced now reverses the direction of that flow. Both steps sit under the same partnership, and both came before a locally issued card could be handed to a customer.

The reach is the point. A card issued in Syria that is accepted internationally works at terminals abroad the way any other Mastercard does, and payments move across the same network. For the bank, that means a product whose value does not stop at the border.

What the central bank and Mastercard said

H.E. Mohammed Safwat Raslan, Governor of the Central Bank of Syria, said the launch expands access to digital banking services and strengthens integration of the banking and monetary sectors. It also, he said, empowers consumers and businesses to benefit more broadly from modern payment solutions.

Those comments place the card in two frames at once: the individual customer's access to digital banking, and the connection between the country's banking and monetary systems. Both rest on the same infrastructure — accounts held at Syrian banks that can send and receive payments through an international network.

Adam Jones, Division President for West Arabia at Mastercard, said the launch is another important step in the evolution of Syria's payments ecosystem.

Phased rollout and the group behind the bank

QNB Syria will roll the card out in phases, and it is adding more payment products and services as it goes. The card is open to qualified customers, which leaves the bank to set the conditions for who receives one during the early stages.

The bank is a subsidiary of QNB Group, which is based in Doha, Qatar, and has a presence in other markets in the Middle East and Africa.

The featured image was edited by Fintech News UAE based on an image by Mastercard via its website.