School payments made easy

University students can now make school fee payments using their smartphones, thanks to CrediMax’s recent partnership with Bahrain Institute of Banking & Finance (BIBF).

The signing ceremony, which took place at the institute in Juffair, featured Yousif Ali Mirza, CrediMax chief executive and Dr Ahmed AbdulHameed Al Shaikh, director of BIBF and A Wahid Janahi, Benefit chief executive officer as well as invited guests and officials from all parties.

“This partnership will provide students with easier and more convenient ways to make payments on and around campus, as we are wholly committed to support the Kingdom of Bahrain in realising its vision of becoming a cashless society,” said, Dr Ahmed, BIBF’s director.

The collaboration between the leading credit card company and Benefit to provide a unified QR Code payment option will also allow both MaxWallet and BenefitPay users to complete payments with registered merchants through their smartphones.

Abdul Wahed Al Janahi, chief executive officer of BENEFIT said: “We are excited to tie up with the BIBF and participate in the digitisation opportunity at the institute. Students will now have the option to pay for their education using their mobile phone cashlessly. This tie-up will also allow us to deepen our relationship with the education sector in Bahrain.”

The adoption of mobile payments into colleges, universities and institutions is also in full swing around the world on a myriad of devices to make in-campus payments more convenient for students.

Several universities in the UK for example such as Cardiff, Aberdeen and South Wales have been working with the Yoyo Wallet app to allow college students to pay quickly while getting rewarded with redeemable points for their loyalty.

The application basically links up a bank account via direct debit to make payments using generated QR codes.

Embracing mobile payments is gradually giving rise to new levels of data and commerce, providing a clearer view on commercial campus activity as well as uncovering what services that are doing the best or worst financially.

Other universities are taking it a step further and working on creating cashless campuses.

For example, in April, The National University of Singapore announced that it aims to go cashless sometime in the new academic year with all food operators and retailers providing various payment options and no longer accepting cash.

In the US, some educational institutions have already transformed students’ identification cards into powerful commercial tools and devices to enhance campus security.

These campus cards are used as keys to residence hall buildings and individual rooms and also allow students and staff to purchase meals, supplies and other services on and off campus. Higher-education institutions are also eager to upgrade their card systems to incorporate more services and functions.