Online payments in Iraq: cards, wallets, cash on delivery
How Iraqi shoppers pay online, what each method needs from a merchant, and what to ask a developer to build, from cash on delivery to cards and wallets.
An order arrives through your site at eleven at night. In most cases the shopper will pay the driver in cash a day or two later. Some of your shoppers, though, hold a Qi Card, a bank card or a wallet app and would rather pay now. This guide covers each way of getting paid, what it needs from you, and what to ask a developer to build.
Cash on delivery, done properly
Cash on delivery is still how most online orders in Iraq are paid, so it deserves the same care as a card integration. Four decisions make it work:
- Confirm before dispatch. Call or send a WhatsApp message for every new order before it leaves the shelf. This catches wrong numbers, vague addresses, duplicate orders and changes of mind while the parcel is still in your hands.
- Agree the cash handover in writing. The delivery company collects your money. Before the first parcel goes out, settle how often it pays you, by what means, and with what statement listing each order.
- Decide what happens to refused parcels. Who pays for the return trip, how many days the courier may hold a parcel, and how the item goes back into stock.
- Consider a small prepayment for expensive items. A deposit shows the buyer is serious and covers the delivery cost if the parcel comes back.
Stock held in transit and matching the courier's cash against orders are covered in our guide to selling online in Iraq.
The electronic methods your shoppers may hold
There is no single "pay online" button in Iraq. A shopper may hold one or several of these: a Qi Card, which is very widely held and began as the card on which salaries and pensions are paid, together with its SuperQi app; a Visa or Mastercard issued by an Iraqi bank; a wallet such as ZainCash; the First Iraqi Bank (FIB) app; or FastPay, which is common in the Kurdistan Region.
| Method | Who has it | What you need | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash on delivery | Every shopper | A delivery company and a written agreement on handing over the cash | Refused parcels, and your money sitting with the courier |
| Qi Card and SuperQi | Very widely held | A contract with a licensed provider that accepts it | Ask whether shoppers pay with the card, through the app or both, and test each path |
| Visa and Mastercard | Customers of Iraqi banks that issue them | A contract with a gateway that accepts bank cards | Ask which cards are accepted: Iraqi-issued only, or foreign cards too |
| Wallets such as ZainCash | Shoppers who keep a balance in the wallet | A contract with a provider that accepts that wallet | The shopper needs enough balance at checkout; keep cash on delivery as a fallback |
| FIB app | Customers of First Iraqi Bank | A contract with a provider that accepts it | Reaches only shoppers who bank there |
| FastPay | Common in the Kurdistan Region | A contract with a provider that accepts it | Matters most when many of your orders ship to the Kurdistan Region |
The paperwork every provider asks for
Whichever method you choose, the starting point is the same: a registered business, a bank account, and a contract with a licensed payment provider or gateway. Transfers to a personal account, confirmed by a screenshot, stop working once orders pass a handful a day. Nobody can match them to orders, and a screenshot is easy to fake.
Fees, settlement time and payout currency differ from one provider to the next. Before you choose, get three things in writing from each:
- The fees: per payment, monthly, for setup, and for a refund.
- The settlement time: how many days pass between the shopper paying and the money reaching your bank account.
- The payout currency: whether you are paid in dinars or in dollars, and at which rate if a conversion is involved.
Ask each provider which payment methods one contract covers. Sign in the company's name, with a company email address as the account owner. Your developer connects the gateway, but the merchant account should stay in the company's hands.
What to ask a developer to build
Connecting a gateway is a small project with a few parts that have to be right:
- A hosted page or an in-page form. With a hosted payment page, the shopper is sent to the provider's own page to enter the card details and is then returned to your store. With an in-page form, the fields sit inside your checkout. The hosted page is less work and keeps card numbers off your server. The in-page form looks smoother and leaves more of the security burden with you.
- The confirmation from the gateway. After a payment, the gateway sends a message straight to your system saying which order was paid and how much. Your developer may call it a webhook or a callback. Your system must check that the message came from the gateway, usually by a signature it carries.
- Paid only on that confirmation. The shopper also lands on a "success" screen in the browser. That screen can be closed early, lost on a weak connection or imitated. Mark an order paid only when the gateway's verified confirmation arrives and its amount matches the order, never on the success screen alone.
- Refunds. Ask how a refund is issued, in full and in part, and who in your team is allowed to issue one.
- A test mode. The provider should supply test credentials, so that successful, failed and cancelled payments can all be rehearsed before money moves.
- Daily reconciliation. Every day, compare what the gateway says it paid you with what your orders say was paid. A difference found the next morning is far easier to explain than one found at the end of the quarter.
The checkout also has to load over HTTPS with a valid SSL certificate, or the browser warns the shopper away before they pay. Every PearlFibers hosting plan includes a free SSL certificate.
A sensible order to do it in
- Launch with cash on delivery done properly: confirmation, written courier terms and a rule for refused parcels.
- During confirmation calls, ask shoppers which card or wallet they hold and whether they would have paid in advance. A few weeks of answers show which method to add first.
- Add that one electronic method.
- Measure: how many orders use it, how many payments fail, and how refusals compare with cash orders.
- Add the next method only if the numbers justify another contract, another settlement schedule and another line to reconcile every morning.
Getting it built
Payment integration is part of the software development PearlFibers does: connecting a client's system to Qi Card payments, SMS, WhatsApp and accounting exports. The platform we built for Business Avenue takes Qi Card payments through a hosted 3-D Secure checkout confirmed by a signed webhook, and reconciles the cash at each branch daily.
If you are planning a store, or adding online payment to one you already run, tell us which methods your shoppers hold and which provider you are considering. You will get a written scope, with deliverables, timeline and price, before any commitment.