JoPACC and NARC Inaugurate the First Training Session to Promote the Acceptance of Digital Payments at the 2023 Olive Festival

The Jordan Payments and Clearing Company (JoPACC), in partnership with the National Agricultural Research Center (NARC), successfully completed the inaugural training session for the Olive Festival (2023) Vendors at Rotana Hotel in Amman, designed to enhance and promote the adoption of digital payment methods during the upcoming 2023 Olive Festival.

Celebrated as one of the Kingdom’s preeminent non-profit events, the Olive Festival, which is attended by thousands of visitors each year, provides a platform for farmers, rural women, and various other participants from across the Kingdom's governorates to exhibit, promote, market, and sell their agricultural products.

As part of this cooperation and in coordination with NARC, JoPACC will conduct several training sessions for Olive Festival vendors in 6 different governorates including Amman, Balqa, Irbid, Karak, Zarqa, and Ma'an, attracting participants from all governorates of Jordan. These tailored training courses also aim to promote digital financial literacy for participating vendors and train them to open and use financial accounts and accept payments digitally during the festival.

The training courses will span over a week and will initially train around (200) participants, with more courses scheduled to follow down the pipeline to train approximately (500) participants from all governorates ahead of the start of the Olive Festival in November. JoPACC who will be monitoring the behavior of trainees will be offering financial incentives to participants upon their acceptance of digital payments at the festival. In addition, and in accordance with its participatory approach with players in the financial sector, JoPACC has coordinated with Orange Money, one of the leading mobile wallets in Jordan, who sponsored the training sessions and also promoted their digital financial services to vendors so that the training experience became both comprehensively informative and altogether practical.

In her capacity, Her Excellency Maha Bahou, CEO of JoPACC, emphasized the critical significance of these outreach programs that target the less fortunate groups of society across all age brackets, adding: “We aim to empower marginalized segments by staying abreast of the evolving landscape of digital payments and providing them with access to the necessary tools they need. This will not only improve their quality of life but also save them time, effort, and money typically associated with cash transactions. By promoting financial inclusion, our efforts will enable these communities to expand their customer base and strengthen their ability to weather financial crises.”

For his part, the Director General of NARC, Dr. Nizar Haddad, expressed his gratitude for the collaboration between the public and private sectors in developing participants' skills to utilize digital payments and boost trade exchange with festival visitors.

Through collaborative outreach programs and a strong sense of partnership between the public and private sectors, JoPACC and NARC are making meaningful strides in assisting the most vulnerable members of Jordanian society, empowering them, increasing their financial awareness, and ultimately helping them maintain their livelihood and improve their quality of life. NARC works openly with all the Kingdom's institutions to effectively serve the purposes of sustainable development, which are embodied in these training courses held by JoPACC.