Bank of Palestine and Palestine Commercial Bank signed a joint Agreement of Understanding to provide the service for issuing credit and debit cards for Palestine Commercial Bank; the agreement was signed by Mr. Hashim Shawa, Bank of Palestine’s Chairman and General Manager, and Mr. Azzam Shawa, Palestine Commercial Bank’s General Manager; the agreement signing ceremony took place in Bank of Palestine’s General Management Head Office in Ramallah, in the presence of Dr. Hani Nigim and Mr. Maher Farah, members of Bank of Palestine’s Board of Directors, and Mr. Fahed Malhas, member of Palestine Commercial Bank’s Board of Directors, and with participation of a number of officials and Heads of departments and sections from both banks.
Under the agreement, Bank of Palestine, a key member of the international companies Visa and MasterCard, will work on providing the service for issuing credit and debit cards for Palestine Commercial Bank as a secondary member. The agreement enables the Commercial Bank to provide the cards’ service for its customers, both credit and debit cards, in a short time as these cards are manufactured locally by Bank of Palestine, as oppose to other banking institutions that usually manufacture the cards abroad.
At the beginning of the ceremony, Mr. Hashim Shawa welcomed the attendees, expressing his contentment with this agreement that represents a fruitful result for the efforts to enhance the partnership and integration between Palestinian banks to meet the needs of the Palestinian people. He indicated that this agreement is the fourth of its kinds that Bank of Palestine signs to provide the service for issuing and accepting credit and debit cards, as the Bank signed three agreements last year with Arab Islamic Bank, Palestinian Islamic Bank and Palestine Investment Bank.
Shawa presented an aspect of Bank of Palestine’s contributions to advance the use of credit cards in Palestine, as the Bank started with this work several years ago and were limited with 500 machines distributed on commercial shops, supermarkets, restaurants and service centers; however, the increase of demand to use the plastic cards multiplied this number to reach more than 5000 electronic points of sales owned by the Bank in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that accept Visa cards, Visa Electron, MasterCard and other cards it owns.
Mr. Azzam Shawa, Palestine Commercial Bank’s General Manager, expressed his contentment for this cooperation with Bank of Palestine; he indicated that this agreement represents a consecration of the Bank’s efforts to advance the services it provides for the customers and to meet the needs of Palestine Commercial Bank’s customers, and keeps the Bank updated with the modern developments in the world of banking products that rapidly grows and evolves.
Based on this agreement, the Bank will provide three types of cards, which are the international instant debit card (purchasing and cash withdrawal cards), the regular monthly debit card “silver credit card” and the monthly golden debit card “golden credit card”; all the cards are safe to use as they contain smart chips, which is the safest system in the world, and can be used in more than two million ATMS in the world and more than 25 million commercial institutions and points of sale around the world.