​The State, through the Romanian Digitization Authority and the Association of Electronic Payments (APERO), share the costs and ownership of Ghiseul.ro, a national online card payment system for fees and taxes, launched in 2011 as a public-private project to which 1,300 central offices are connected and local institutions.

How Ghiseul.ro appeared and how the costs were divided between the state and private companies

The Ghișeul.ro platform, which recently also has a mobile app, was launched as a public-private project in 2011, based on a payment solution developed by Baia Mare-based Indeco Soft, owned by Dorin Trajan Barbul (60%) and Mariana Barbul (40%), which is a member of the Electronic Payments Association of Romania (APERO).

Ghiseul.ro – the national online payment card system for fees and taxes – is regulated by Government Decision 1235 of December 6, 2010.

• Association of Electronic Payments (APERO) indicates on its own website that, as part of Ghișeul.ro, it provides the Romanian Digitization Authority, from its own resources, free of charge and unconditionally, a set of commercial applications, provides its support and further development and manages the communication regarding the project and ensures his promotion.
• Authority for Digitization of Romania (ADR)as a representative of the state, is the administrator and operator of the system, provides the technical and communication infrastructure (including the software necessary for the operation of the equipment).

The company that developed Ghiseul.ro also offers another payment solution for municipalities not registered on Ghiseul.ro

This is evidenced by the latest data presented by HotNews.rothe town halls of 43 cities are currently not connected to Ghiseul.robut in many cases, citizens can pay their local taxes with the help of other private IT solutions, one of which was developed by Indeco Soft, which also created access to the Ghișeul.ro platform.

The City Hall of the Municipality of Beyush, as well as the Town Halls of Ineu or Nuchet, for example, which are not connected to Ghiseul.ro, pay through Global Pay (Indeco Soft Baia Mare solution).

When contacted by HotNews.ro, representatives of Indeco Soft explained how the two solutions differ and what role the company still plays in the administration of the Ghișeul.ro platform.

Achim Yoan, Sales Director, Indeco Softstates that “GlobalPay and Ghiseul.ro are two different solutions with different approaches.”

• “GlobalPay it is a tool intended for individual use by each municipality. Customization is possible, and administration is the direct responsibility of the beneficiary institution. GlobalPay only works for municipalities using Indeco Soft’s tax and fee management solution.
• Ghiseul.ro is a central solution that offers consultation and payment functions for any educational institution on a centralized platform. With Ghișeul.ro, you can integrate any type of tax, fee or tariff management solution. The platform is governed by HG 1235 of 2010 developed by MCSI, MFP and MAI, as well as relevant methodological and technical regulations,” said an Indeco Soft representative.

The Ghișeul.ro platform was provided by APERO for transfer to the state

Which of the two solutions was developed first?

• “GlobalPay has been a functional solution since 2008, while Ghiseul.ro was launched in 2011. The experience gained while using GlobalPay played an important role in the development of the Ghiseul.ro platform, especially in terms of data and financial flows for reconciliation payments and debt reduction or repayment.
• The Ghișeul.ro software solution was provided to APERO in early 2011 for further transfer to the state represented at the time by the MCSI (Ministry of Communications), one of the institutions whose mandate was taken over by ADR. Achim Yoan stated.

12 years have passed, and the Ghiseul.ro platform has not been transferred to the state, although discussion of full reimbursement of this platform also existed in 2021.

Who owns the IT solutions from Ghiseul.ro

• “According to the protocol signed between ADR and APERO in 2021, the intellectual property rights for the Front-end component of the Ghiseul.ro software were transferred to the Romanian Digitization Authority, and the rights for the Back-end component were transferred to the APERO area,” – explained the sales manager of Indeco Soft.

Interfaceis a graphical interface of a program that directly interacts with the user.

Backend represents the technical part of the application, also known as the server, which includes the database, functionality and APIs – programming interfaces that provide data from the Back-End to the Front-End of the application, and therefore to the client.

The Authority for Digitization of Romania (ADR) told HotNews.ro that “the ownership of the Ghișeul.ro external domain was downloaded for free in June 2021″.

What role does Indeco Soft play at Ghiseul.ro now?

• “Administration of the gîsheul.ro platform is the responsibility of ADR. APERO has undertaken the maintenance and development of the server component to the extent that such operations are necessary to update or include new features. A significant part of this effort is handled by APERO through Indeco Soft,” said Achim Yoan.

Why do some municipalities use the Global Pay solution without registering at Ghiseul.ro?

• “We expect that in the next period all the municipalities with which we cooperate will complete the registration in Ghiseul.ro. The enrollment process involves several stages, including a public procurement procedure for selecting an accepting bank. This town hall process requires some availability.
• From this point of view, the GlobalPay solution is easier to launch and includes a package of services, including phone support with extended hours. It is also a more tailored solution for certain types of payments, such as parking passes specific to each town hall or car access charges for heavy traffic. Both examples also provide integration with real-time verification solutions using optical license plate recognition.
• Until 2020, tax payments or fees for legal entities could not be made at Ghiseul.ro.
• There are city halls that are trying to provide more payment channels for citizens, including for high availability: online, payment machines, collection points. Pricing is usually set per transaction, so channel diversification does not bring additional costs to municipalities, and cash collection remains the most expensive method.”, This was also stated by Achim Yoan, Sales Director of Indeco Soft.

GlobalPay and Ghișeul.ro are not the only online solutions for paying fees and taxes.

Private alternatives provides Register (an application developed by Zitec in which 70 institutions activated the payment module. 15 of them are not registered on Ghiseul.ro) or on the platform eTaxdeveloped by Real Data Soft.

The latter is used, for example Nevodari Town Hallthe largest city by population where the town hall is not connected to Ghiseul.ro.