Apple, Ministry of Finance reach understanding to activate ‘Apple Pay’ in Kuwait

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KUWAIT CITY, Sept 15: Apple has reached an understanding with the Ministry of Finance that allows activating the application of the “Apple Pay” service in Kuwait soon, noting that local banks have already started preparing to launch the service for their customers during next October 2022, reports Al-Rai daily. The “Apple Pay” service allows customers to pay via the “iPhone” and the smart watch, as the application allows making financial payments electronically.

The use of the service also facilitates and simplifies financial payments, compared to using a payment card, through various purchase channels, and among its most prominent features, the ability to receive and send money through simple messages, and the ability to request a specific value of money from others. The sources stated that, based on the understanding between the Ministry of Finance and “Apple”, the banks will not be obligated to withhold the prescribed tax of 5% of the total returns of “Apple” on its application of the “Apple Pay” service, as a banking service that is not covered by the legally defined tax space on investment, indicating that the application of the service will be without any additional fees to the customer. It is expected that banks will launch “Apple Pay” with the same mechanism that is applied by more than one local bank with “Samsung Pay”, a service that is not included in taxation.

Through the two services, the customer can make guaranteed and secure purchases from within any application or store, but the first service is implemented in exchange for a deduction for each purchase made by the customer, while the second does not entail any deductible fees for the parent company, which is satisfied with signing an annual agreement for banks wishing to The application of its service, for a specified fee amount. The sources indicated that among the agreed understandings between the “Finance” and the company was abandoning the idea of implementing the “Apple Pay” service under the umbrella of the Direct Investment Promotion Authority (DIPA), as it was initially pushing the “Finance” under the pretext of listing it in the list of tax-exempt foreign companies due to its enjoyment of anti-duplication tax agreements.

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