Digital Payments in Syria 2026: Sham Cash, Syriatel Cash and 10 Checks

Digital payments in Syria in 2026 reach a business through four channels: transfers between Syrian bank accounts, mobile wallets such as Sham Cash and Syriatel Cash, cards on the Mastercard network, which came back this year, and cash, which no rule has replaced. The rules are still moving, so this guide sticks to what official pages state as of November 2026.

The framework first. In August 2026, Decision No. 1124 of 2026, issued by the General Secretariat of the Presidency, adopted a payment and electronic transformation system for Syria. According to SANA's report on the decision, the Central Bank of Syria (CBS) explained that it regulates three types of entities: payment service providers, electronic money service providers and payment system operators, plus a regulatory sandbox for testing new solutions under supervision. The CBS stressed two limits: the system does not abolish cash or impose a payment method, and it does not mean immediate international links or transfers.

What each channel looks like for a merchant today:

• Bank transfer: the natural choice for invoices to companies and for large amounts, landing in your company account with a reference you can trace.
• Syriatel Cash: Syriatel's service page lists merchant accounts, payment to a merchant by mobile number or a special code through its apps or USSD code, and free transfers from a merchant account to banks.
• Sham Cash: the company told SANA in May 2026 that it has more than 4.2 million users, a section for companies and institutions, and deposits and withdrawals through approved agents and exchange offices.
• Other wallets: if a customer asks to pay through another wallet, check its licence and current terms directly with the provider before you accept it.
• Cards: the first live Mastercard payment at a local store in more than 15 years took place in August 2026; the last section explains what that means for a shop.
• Cash: still the default for many buyers, so plan for both.

Wallets suit small, frequent payments; banks suit invoices and payroll. Most shops will need at least one of each.

Ask every wallet provider and bank these 10 questions in writing before its QR code goes on your counter, and file the answers. Fees and limits change often, so treat any figure given only verbally as provisional.

• Licence: Is the company licensed by the CBS, or has it applied under Decision 1124? Ask for the reference; as of November 2026 we found no published CBS list of licensed e-payment companies.
• Account type: Is it a merchant or business account in the company's name, not a personal wallet?
• Who pays the fee: Syriatel's page says payments into a merchant account carry a fee, which the merchant can choose to bear by visiting a service centre.
• Fee table: What does receiving, sending, cashing out and moving money to your bank each cost?
• Limits: How much can a customer pay you per day, and how much can you receive? Syriatel's page lists a daily maximum of 5,500 ل.س for customer accounts and no upper limit on what a merchant account receives from subscribers.
• Settlement: How, and how fast, does the balance reach your bank account?
• Statement: Can you export transactions to Excel or CSV with date, amount, fee, transaction ID and the payer's note?
• Reference: Can the buyer type your order number into the payment, so you can match it?
• Refunds: How do you send money back to a buyer, and is the fee returned?
• Users and branches: Can cashiers get receive-only access, and can you see each branch separately? Sham Cash told SANA its business section lets multi-branch firms manage accounts, cash boxes and permissions centrally.

Cash out only through your bank, the provider's approved agents or licensed exchange companies. From 18 October 2026 the CBS began legal action against anyone practising exchange or money transfer without a licence, under Article 25 of Law No. 24 of 2006, and urged the public to deal only with licensed companies and offices.

Reconcile wallet and bank collections every day before the cashier leaves: a wallet payment you cannot match on Tuesday becomes an argument with a customer by Friday.

The closing routine:

• Open or export today's statement for each wallet and bank account.
• Match every incoming payment to an order or invoice by its reference or the payer's number.
• Record the fee as its own line, never netted silently into the sale.
• Flag anything unmatched: a payment with no reference, an order marked paid with no money behind it, a duplicate.
• Release goods only after the money shows in your own wallet or bank app; a screenshot of a transfer is not a payment.
• Count cash separately, then sign the day off.

Copy this log into a spreadsheet, one row per payment:

• Date
• Channel: Sham Cash, Syriatel Cash or bank
• Order or invoice number
• Customer name and mobile
• Amount in ل.س
• Fee in ل.س
• Net received in ل.س
• Transaction ID
• Matched: yes or no
• Checked by

Worked example, with illustrative amounts and an illustrative fee, not any provider's tariff: a home-appliance shop in Homs closes Tuesday with four digital payments expected in its system.

• S00412, Sham Cash, 4,900 ل.س, matched.
• S00415, Sham Cash, 12,200 ل.س, matched.
• S00418, Syriatel Cash, 3,650 ل.س, with a 35 ل.س fee on the statement, so 3,615 ل.س net.
• INV/2026/0217, bank transfer, 61,000 ل.س, matched.

Expected total: 81,750 ل.س. The statements show 81,715 ل.س net, plus a 2,000 ل.س Sham Cash payment with no reference. Two actions follow: book the 35 ل.س to a bank and wallet charges account, and message the 2,000 ل.س sender before the money is applied to anyone's balance. Keep the row open until it is resolved, and carry it to tomorrow's log.

Odoo can treat each wallet like a small bank account, which is what makes the daily match quick. These steps use Odoo 20's Accounting, Point of Sale and eCommerce apps.

• One journal per wallet: in Accounting ‣ Configuration ‣ Journals, create a Bank-type journal in SYP for each wallet and each bank account, such as "Sham Cash - Main" and "Syriatel Cash - Branch 2".
• Bring in the day's lines: import the wallet's Excel or CSV export from the journal's menu on the Accounting Dashboard and map its columns once. Odoo's guide to bank transactions lists CSV and XLSX among the supported formats. If a provider offers no export, add lines by hand with New; Label and Date are mandatory.
• Match: open Bank Matching and use Reconcile on each line to pick the invoice or payment; Odoo's reconciliation guide explains the other buttons.
• Fees: create a reconciliation model whose Label condition matches the provider's fee text and posts it to your charges account, as a fixed amount, a percentage, or a value read from the label with a regex.
• Duplicates: in Bank Matching, Actions ‣ Find Duplicate Transactions catches a statement imported twice.
• Point of Sale: in Point of Sale ‣ Configuration ‣ Payment Methods, add one method per wallet with its Bank journal, and tick Identify Customer to force a customer on every wallet sale.
• Online store: duplicate the Wire Transfer method once per wallet, as our guide to launching an online store in Syria shows.

Two habits keep this reliable. Write the transaction ID in the payment memo every time; it is what settles a dispute months later. And never mark a sale paid by wallet without the journal line behind it, or Odoo's wallet balance will drift from the app's.

Keep dollar accounts too? Our guide to multi-currency accounting in Syria covers the rates and the exchange differences.

Sanctions relief has reopened doors for Syrian banks, but gradually, so ask what your own bank can do today. The milestones, from official pages:

• United States: Executive Order 14312 of 30 June 2025 revoked the Syria sanctions program from 1 July 2025, the Caesar Act was repealed on 18 December 2025, and Syria's State Sponsor of Terrorism designation was rescinded on 24 August 2026. OFAC no longer maintains comprehensive sanctions on Syria, but list-based sanctions remain, so screen counterparties via the OFAC Syria page.
• Cards: CBS Decision No. 259 of May 2026 set a framework for licensed institutions and e-payment companies to work with global payment networks. On 30 August 2026 the CBS governor made the first live Mastercard payment at a local store in more than 15 years, and on 14 September 2026 QNB Syria launched the first locally issued card accepted internationally.
• Trade finance: on 12 October 2026 the CBS executed its first documentary credit in 14 years, for the Syrian Petroleum Company, coordinating with a major American bank.
• Correspondent banking: in October 2026 the CBS told a US Treasury roundtable it is moving to measurable steps to restore correspondent relationships, so that work is still under way.

In practice, ask your bank which currencies and countries it can handle, at what cost, and with which documents.

Records to keep for every digital channel:

• The provider contract, its fee table and its written answer on licensing.
• Monthly statements as PDF and Excel, per wallet and account.
• The signed daily log, with transaction IDs.
• Refunds, with the customer's request and proof of return.
• Proof that every account and wallet is in the company's name.

Next step: list every wallet and account that received money last month, then tell us about your setup. METCH, an official Odoo partner serving Syria, can configure these journals and train your team in Arabic.