Call for Expressions of Interest (EoI) “E-SADAD APIs Integr...

Call for Expressions of Interest (EoI)

“E-SADAD APIs Integration Development”

Contractor: Palestinian Payment Services Company (PPSC)

Contract title: E-SADAD “Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment system” Billers APIs Integration Technical Assistance and Development

Issued on: 05th Mar. 2024

PPSC is seeking proposals for an implementing partner(s) (local ITC enterprises) to enable a subset of new billers to integrate with E-SADAD via standard API. The designated ITC will be in charge of providing technical assistance and development to allow the biller to integrate using E-SADAD standard APIs, with ongoing, tailored business support from PPSC.

Introduction

The Palestine Monetary Authority “PMA” recently established National Payments Company in Palestine (Palestine Payment Systems Company “PPSC”) to achieve the strategic goals of improving access to retail payment systems in the country, promoting a cashless ecosystem and providing low cost, safe and efficient retail payment services. In order to achieve these goals, certain products have been recommended to be offered as part of the PPSC product suite. This includes a combination of PMA's existing retail products and new product choices (such as the Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment System "E-SADAD" solution), which PPSC made accessible this year. The latter system was chosen after considering its contribution to PMA's objective and the extent to which it may promote the adoption of alternative payment methods.

About E-SADAD: E-SADAD offers a significant opportunity to accelerate the uptake of electronic payments for low-value, high-volume, and recurrent bill transactions. The E-SADAD serves as a national intermediary consolidator system capable of providing Bill Presentment and Payment services across participating institutions as well as processing financial position clearing for all participating members, allowing consumers to retrieve and pay all bills and invoices via the e-channels of participating financial institutions (banks/PSPs) 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It consolidates bills provided by various billers, allowing connected banks/PSPs to conveniently retrieve and present bills to their customers via electronic channels, thereby directly affecting the status of the presented paid bill.

The E-SADAD supported APIs standard specifications [1]will enable third parties (ITC firms) to develop billers related applications to be interfaced straight-through processing (STP) with the E-SADAD and to carry out the necessary systems work on biller core systems which may include adapting them to use the system’s message formats.

GuidelinesThe Palestine Payment Systems Company is looking to qualify five specialized companies in Technical and Software development in Palestine to be nominated for providing future technical support and development to specific billers (such as municipalities, universities, insurance companies) to enable the selected billers to present their invoices through the E-SADAD platform for inquiries and final payments.

The bidder will be responsible for ensuring that their response to this EoI is received in accordance with the instructions stated below:

1. Interested bidders are advised to go through the entire Integration Specification Document before submission their response to this (EOI).
2. The scope of work includes:

• Design, implement and maintain integration with billers and other integrated components in accordance with the technical integration requirement of E-SADAD;
• Provide the billers with necessary software and hardware specifications including any customised changes specific to E-SADAD;
• Provide the billers with details of any other hardware required to implement the solution, for example networking and security components such as routers, firewalls, other security appliances, etc.
• Support and maintenance services to operate the solution;
• Perform and support the testing of all solution integration components, functions and internal/external integrations with E-SADAD.
• On boarding/ Interfacing / Testing successful integration with billers external and internal systems;
• Develop customizable system reports as required by the biller;
• Any other tests according to the nature of the engagement or suggested by the vendor by experience.

3. Potential bidders must meet the below minimum selection criteria:
   • Demonstrated experience in providing IT development and support services for previous similar assignments for at least ten (10) clients who have received similar integration services.
   • In business for at least 5 years.
   • Proven track record of working with local firms’ system integration and complexity, and to provide timelines based on indicative schedules for integrating those billers.
   • At least have 5 permanent staff.

4. The PPSC shall not be under any obligation to discuss the reason why any proposed (EoI) is accepted or rejected. When the PPSC makes any such acceptance/rejection, the PPSC will not be bound to give any reason and/or justification in this regard. The PPSC further reserves the right to reject any or all (EOI) or cancel the whole process due to changes in its business requirement.

Responses to this Expression of Interest (EoI) should be completed using the template attached below and submitted electronically to [email protected] before 2:00 pm (Palestine local time) on March 28, 2024. Late submissions will not be accepted.

[1] To review the full Integration Specification Document, please Submit e-mail the following address: [email protected]

Attachment: Call for Expressions of Interest_ template