BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN

THE GOVERNMENT wants to get all its bill-issuing agencies on board its new e-payment gateway service.

Rokiah Hj Badar, the Acting Accountant General at the Treasury Department, said yesterday that there are currently more than 60 government agencies issuing bills to its customers that need to be linked to the Brunei Darussalam Government e-Payment Gateway (ePG).

Only the Department of Electrical Services, the Postal Departmnent and the Revenue Division are currently linked with the e-payment gateway.

The ePG connects the three agencies with participating banks in Brunei to provide secure online payment transactions to the public and automated payment reporting to the ministry’s Treasury Department.

Through this seamless connections, the new system enables the public to use multiple electronic payment channels to pay their bills.

For the government, it eliminates the traditional manual payment processing, which reduces costs, improves payment processing efficiency and speeds up accounting processes.

In her opening remarks during the system’s launch yesterday, Rokiah said that the Payment Gateway Service Operator (PGSO) under the management of Treasury Department will continue to get more agencies on board until all government payments nationwide are handled through the system.

She added that this would help the government to achieve a fully integrated e-payment system that would benefit the public.

“The system has been designed for easy integration with all relevant agencies in the future.”

Rokiah said that the system is in line with the objectives of the e-Government initiative, as its efficiency and ease-of-use would help increase adoption of e-services in the country.

Participating banks in the ePG are BIBD, HSBC, Baiduri Bank and Standard Chartered Bank.

The department will also work closely with the financial institutions to open more payment channels such as mobile payment and ATM services, among others for the new system.

The Brunei Government ePG has been developed for the Ministry of Finance by a consortium of Telekom Brunei Berhad (Telbru) as the system integrator, and Card Access Services, a leading payment gateway developer from Australia.

The Brunei Times