Just recently, Maldives Customs Service announced their decision to stop accepting physical payments completely from starting 1st October 2020. Following this path, local tax authority, Maldives Inland Revenue Authority (MIRA) has also announced their resolution to only accept digital payments for stipulated amount of money, set by them.
Both, Maldives Customs Service and MIRA have highlighted that a significant reason behind taking this step is as Ministry of Finance has appealed to organization to introduce digital modes of payment. The initiative by the Ministry is to normalize using digital means throughout the nation for the purpose of lessening the dependency of the country’s economy on hard cash and cheques.