Retail Payment Systems
In the OIC Member Countries
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4. CASE STUDIES
The OIC member countries can be examined in 3 sub-groups in order to illustrate differential
development (Hassan, 2009). This will be seen as significant as to the context of the adoption
and use of payment systems. The first group is classified as the Least Developed Members of
the OIC, based on the United Nations designation (hereafter, the LDC group of OIC). This group
is made up of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Gambia,
Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Maldives, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone,
Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Uganda and Yemen. The second group includes the middle-income OIC
member countries (hereafter, the (MDC) group of OIC). These are Albania, Cameroon, Egypt,
Guyana, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Lebanon, Malaysia,
Morocco, Pakistan, Palestine, Suriname, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkey, and Uzbekistan. The
third group comprises the oil-exporting (FEC) members of the OIC, namely Algeria, Azerbaijan,
Bahrain, Brunei, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia,
Turkmenistan, and the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.).
When the effect of a high rate of population growth on economic growth is taken into account,
the OIC’s average per capita income moved from around $1200 in 2000 to over $1500 by the
middle of the decade (Hassan, 2009). When these per capita GDP numbers for the OIC member
countries are compared with those realised by developing countries, the OIC are significantly
disadvantaged.