# Accepting Zain Cash, Qi Card and FIB at the counter: fees and booking

> Accepting e-payments in an Iraqi shop: the merchant fees Zain Cash publishes, what Qi Card, FIB, SuperQi and AsiaHawala do not, and how each payment is booked in Dashing.

By The Dashing team · 2026-09-14

Canonical: https://dashing.krd/en/blog/accepting-epayments-at-the-counter-iraq

Cash still rules the counter in Iraq, but the numbers are moving: retail e-payments on local cards reached 2,984 billion IQD in Q3 2025 against 2,111 billion a year earlier, according to the Central Bank of Iraq, and a POS device has been mandatory in about 17,000 pharmacies since January 2025. The customer asking "do you take Zain Cash?" is now a daily event. This article answers three questions: what to accept, what you pay, and how the payment is booked in your books.

![Retail e-payments on local cards in Iraq: 2,111 billion IQD in Q3 2024 versus 2,984 billion in Q3 2025](/charts/iraq-epayments-q3.svg)

## The five channels customers ask about

| Channel | What it is | What you need at the counter |
|---|---|---|
| **Zain Cash** | Zain Iraq's mobile wallet; pay by scanning a QR code or from the balance | A merchant wallet and a printed QR code |
| **Qi Card** | Cards and POS terminals from International Smart Card, connected to the national switch, Visa and Mastercard | A POS device from the company |
| **SuperQi** | Qi Card's new app (with Ant International): scan-to-pay at the merchant | The same Qi merchant network |
| **FIB** | First Iraqi Bank: a business account, QR payments, POS terminals and a payment gateway | A business account in the app |
| **AsiaHawala** | Asiacell's wallet: transfers and payments | A merchant wallet |

## What you pay: what is published and what is not

This is the most important part of the article, and the most disappointing: of the five channels, **only Zain Cash publishes its business-wallet fee table** (accessed 2026-09-14):

- **Small-projects merchant wallet**: QR or payment-gateway payments **1% with a 500 IQD minimum**; cash-out through an agent **0.75% with a 750 IQD minimum**; capacity 30 million IQD.
- **Merchant wallet**: QR payments **0.6% with a 150 IQD minimum**; agent cash-out 0.75% with a 750 IQD minimum; transfer to a bank account 0.05% with a 6,000 IQD minimum; capacity 500 million IQD.

In numbers: a 25,000 IQD invoice paid by QR costs a small-projects merchant 500 IQD (the minimum, effectively 2%) and a full merchant-wallet holder 150 IQD (0.6%). Withdrawing the money in cash through an agent then costs another 0.75%. Minimum fees on small invoices are what you must calculate.

**Qi Card** describes its terminals and invites merchants to call, and publishes neither device fees, commission nor settlement time. **FIB** publishes its international-transfer commission (0.75%) but no QR or POS merchant fees. **SuperQi** and **AsiaHawala** publish no merchant fee table on their pages. The conclusion: ask for four numbers and get them in writing before signing, the transaction commission, the device or monthly fee, the cash-out or bank-transfer fee, and the settlement time.

## Who pays the fee? Do not pass it on secretly

Some shops ask the customer to "add 500" when paying electronically. That corrupts your pricing and annoys the customer. Better: build the fee into your margin the way you build in the bag and the receipt, and set a reasonable minimum for electronic payment if your invoices are small: a 500 IQD minimum fee on a 5,000 IQD invoice is 10% of the sale.

## How the payment is booked in Dashing

What matters in the books is not the channel's name but **where the money landed**: in the drawer, in a wallet, or in a bank account. This is what Dashing (داشنك) does today, plainly:

- **On the fast cashier screen** there are four tenders: cash, card, Zain Cash, credit. Card is booked as a bank collection separate from cash. **Zain Cash, today, is recorded like cash**: the sale is paid in full, but the amount counts towards the expected cash in the drawer at shift close. If wallet payments are few this is acceptable (treat them as a deposit); if they are many, use the next method.
- **On the invoice screen** choose "Split" and put the amount in the **"Transfer / wallet"** slot: the collection is booked to a bank/wallet account rather than the drawer, so the drawer count stays clean, it appears in the shift report as its own tender, and you can match it later against your bank or wallet statement in the Settlements screen (bank reconciliation).
- **Fees** are recorded as an expense when they are actually deducted (at cash-out or on the monthly statement) from the Expenses screen, under a category you create for it (say, "bank fees"), not on every invoice.

The wallet and the terminal stay outside: nothing tells the system on its own that money arrived, and the Zain Cash statement is not imported. You record each receipt yourself.

## The counter in five minutes

1. Print the wallet's QR code and fix it next to the screen, at a size readable from where the customer stands.
2. Post a note with your electronic-payment minimum, if you have one.
3. Train the cashier: pick the right tender before pressing pay, and do not close the shift before checking that wallet amounts are not sitting in the drawer.
4. Once a week: compare the total of wallet payments in the shift reports with the wallet balance.

## Sources

- Zain Cash, business wallet types and fees, https://zaincash.iq/business-wallets (accessed 2026-09-14)
- Qi Card, POS solutions for merchants, https://qi.iq/en/merchants/pos-solutions (2026-09-14; no fees published)
- First Iraqi Bank, Business, https://fib.iq/business/ (2026-09-14; 0.75% international-transfer commission, no QR fees published)
- IBS Intelligence, Qi Card and Ant International launch SuperQi (more than 20,000 POS merchants and 10,000 cash-out agents), https://ibsintelligence.com/ibsi-news/iraqs-qi-card-partners-with-ant-international-to-launch-superqi-app/
- Central Bank of Iraq, retail e-payments on local cards, Q3 2025, Iraq Business News, 2025-12-20 (its domain stopped resolving in September 2026; the Hatha Alyoum syndication carries the same text), https://english.hathalyoum.net/articles/234230-retail-epayments-via-local-cards-rise-in-q3-2025
- Jummar, on the January 2025 pharmacy POS mandate, https://jummar.media/en/8136

## Other languages

- العربية: https://dashing.krd/blog/accepting-epayments-at-the-counter-iraq

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