SINNAD, a leading GCC third-party payment service provider based in Bahrain, has teamed up with trusted partner Compass Plus to enable its customer banks to offer consumers seamless and secure mobile payments through BenefitPay, the country’s national electronic wallet payment system. As part of the project, SINNAD successfully certified its processing centre, built on Compass Plus solutions, with the tokenisation service from Bahrain Electronic Network for Financial Transactions (BENEFIT).

As part of a strategy to set Bahrain as a regional FinTech hub, the Central Bank of Bahrain and BENEFIT – the country’s national switch – introduced BenefitPay, a wallet that allows consumers to conduct electronic fund transfer and pay for goods and services, and enable merchants to accept contactless and QR payments, via the BenefitPay mobile app. To ensure the security of consumer account information, the innovative payment method operates using tokenisation, therefore all local banks are required to enrol in BENEFIT’s tokenisation service for debit and credit cards.

All local BenefitPay tokenised transactions received from SINNAD’s customers will now be routed via BENEFIT, while international BenefitPay transactions will be routed from Visa or Mastercard to BENEFIT before being sent to the issuer. SINNAD completed the certifications with BenefitPay’s tokenisation service and the international payment networks and went live with the new service in July.

As a processor for several of Bahrain’s largest banks, the move to certify its payments solution, based on Compass Plus solutions, with the BenefitPay and the tokenisation service ensures that sensitive card data is protected and payments can be processed without bank details being exposed. SINNAD customer banks will be able to continue to issue cards from both local and international payments networks in compliance with the new tokenisation service.

SINNAD operates its card processing services through an unparalleled state-of-the-art system, providing a top-notch solution that offers advanced features for card processing businesses with enhanced security, ease, and convenience. BenefitPay tokenisation is a major milestone in enriching the banking services, amongst all banks, in the country.

Mrs. Rana Ali, General Manager at SINNAD, commented: “SINNAD’s tremendous success in expanding its offering to banks is a result of the dedication and the right expertise within the team. The market is constantly changing, and, as such, banks are striving for advanced solutions. At SINNAD, we strongly believe that such a service will boost frictionless payments through BenefitPay’s mobile application and move cards and payments to a new era.”

“SINNAD and Compass Plus have been working together for a number of years after partnering originally to expand the array of services available to SINNAD and its customers,” said Mohamed Hijazi, AVP & ME Regional Business Development Director at Compass Plus. “We are thrilled to be part of SINNAD’s expansion and for it to be a part of the BenefitPay network.”