Qi Card Salifni Program in Position to Ease Financial Burden for Millions of Iraqis

Program for Ministry Employees Provide Seamless, On-Time & On-Demand Salary Payments

BAGHDAD, Aug. 31, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Qi Card, The leading electronic payment solution and national debit/credit card of Iraq, today announced the launch of Salifni, a temporary, emergency loan program allowing qualified, ministry employees  to  receive 200K IQD instead of waiting for their salary through traditional methods. Salifni was created to directly address the issue of delayed salary payments to nearly 2 million Iraqi government employees.

"We are excited to offer this program as one way to help the Iraqi people through lockdowns imposed from COVID-19," said Bahaa Al-Hadi, chairman and founder of International Smart Card, the company that owns and operates Qi Card. "This zero-interest loan program delivers government employee salaries directly onto their Mastercard and is available immediately."

Built on the successful Qi Card program platform, Salifni is designed to help government employees limit further exposure to potential scenarios that place citizens at risk of contracting the coronavirus. Instead of waiting in long lines to receive funds manually from populated bank branches, citizens can request their money directly from the comfort of their home by using their smartphone, computer or other mobile devices through a secure network.

"Salifni expedites salary payments while helping Iraqi people ease the worry and stress of having access to money during coronavirus lockdown orders," added Bahaa Al-Hadi. "Social distancing and eliminating any unnecessary movement throughout the community is vitally important to defeating the coronavirus pandemic. The ability of ministry-level employees to access their money early and safely is a top priority."

The loans are processed by a user-friendly, secure portal that can be accessed online where a list of ministry-level government employees is categorized and approved. The approved status of nearly 1.7M government employees is updated frequently to ensure continued eligibility. Upon accessing the secure portal, customers follow a series of basic questions regarding the loan and review the terms and conditions. Once the terms and conditions are accepted, customers engage with an OTP (one-time password) code as an added security feature. Upon acceptance, funds are uploaded directly to the customer's Qi Card in seconds.

To learn more about Qi Card's Salifni program, visit: qi.iq/loans  

About Qi Card

Qi Card is the leading electronic payment services solution in Iraq, which employs biometric identity as the cardholder verification method. Qi Card is operated and managed by International Smart Card "ISC", the most successful public private partnership in the history of Iraq. With its State Bank partners, Al-Rafidain and Al-Rashed, it has successfully completed domiciliation of more than 7M citizens with its multi-biometric payment scheme. In just over 18 months, ISC was able to disburse 5T IQD in loans to over 800,000 Iraqi citizens. To date, Qi Card has an ecosystem of 17,000 POS and more than 6000 merchants using the Qi scheme to provide instant merchant funded installment and other commercial activities. Qi Card issues and acquires payment cards on behalf of fourteen affiliated banks in Iraq. Through its principle membership in Mastercard, ISC has now issued more than 1.8M Mastercard and is now the largest Mastercard provider in Iraq.