MPGS payment gateway in Kuwait: the bank card gateway vs KNET

MPGS stands for Mastercard Payment Gateway Services. It is the card gateway many banks give their merchants: when your Kuwaiti bank says it has set up "the payment gateway" for Visa and Mastercard, the credentials it hands you are often MPGS credentials. This guide covers how it relates to KNET, how to integrate it, and how it works with WooCommerce and Shopify. Everything below was checked against the sources on 26 October 2026.

This is a technical guide from a software team, not legal or financial advice.

What MPGS is

Mastercard's developer documentation calls the platform the Mastercard Gateway. A bank (or another payment service provider) boards you on it, gives you a merchant ID and a login to the Merchant Administration portal, and your website talks to the gateway through its API.

You will see other names. Some people say SMGS or MIGS when they mean MPGS. MIGS was the older name, according to Spreedly's gateway fact sheet, which lists "MasterCard Payment Gateway Service (formerly MiGS)". Commercial Bank of Kuwait's 2025 card gateway agreement refers to "the Bank Payment Gateway System 'MIGS' or 'MPGS'".

Kuwait Times reported on 11 June 2023 that National Bank of Kuwait and Mastercard launched an embedded Click to Pay solution, which it said would let more than 2,000 local merchants use hosted checkout "powered by Mastercard Payment Gateway Services (MPGS)". Ask your bank which gateway sits behind its card service.

MPGS and KNET are separate bank services

KNET is Kuwait's debit card network. MPGS is a card gateway. At a bank they are usually two products with two price lines, and you may need both.

Commercial Bank of Kuwait publishes its Electronic Payment Service Request form (F2F Version 8.0, March 2026), and it shows the split. As printed on that form:

• Knet Payment Gateway Service (listed separately from the bank-hosted page below): KD 200 setup, KD 30 a year, and 0.100% of the amount plus KD 0.080 per transaction.
• Knet and T-Pay Hosted Payment Gateway Service (a bank-hosted page): KD 20 setup, KD 30 a year, and the same 0.100% plus KD 0.080.
• Credit Card Payment Gateway Service: the setup fee, monthly rent and commission are left blank, to be filled in for each merchant.
• Apple Pay is a tick-box under each KNET gateway, with one option for debit cards (no separate fee is printed) and one for prepaid and credit cards, where commission applies "as per the Credit Card Payment Gateway Agreement" plus KD 0.020 per transaction.

The form does not name the card platform. The bank's Credit Card Payment Gateway Agreement (Version 2.0, May 2025) does: clause 12 says integration with "the Bank Payment Gateway System 'MIGS' or 'MPGS'" is the merchant's responsibility, and that the bank provides sample integration code and support. The same agreement says the bank deducts its discount fee and pays the net amount to the merchant's settlement account.

At this bank, then, cards on your website need the card gateway agreement on top of any KNET service, and so does Apple Pay with credit cards. Other banks set their own terms; ask for them in writing.

Can MPGS carry KNET too?

Mastercard documents KNET as a payment method on the Mastercard Gateway. The prerequisites are a merchant account with a KNET member bank, your own KNET merchant ID and credentials, registering your domain and CNAME with your gateway provider, and asking your acquirer to enable KNET on your merchant profile. The same page says KNET supports only the PAY model (no separate authorise and capture), KWD only, full and partial refunds, and no refunds after 90 days from the purchase date. The direct KNET route is covered in our KNET integration guide.

MPGS vs KNET vs a licensed payment company

Three different things often get called "the payment gateway". This table states what each one is and who you sign with. It is not a ranking.

As of 26 October 2026, the Central Bank of Kuwait's e-payment service providers register lists companies such as Tap Payments, UPayments, Hesabe and Payzah. Our guide to payment gateways in Kuwait walks through the full register.

Hosted Checkout, Hosted Session or Direct Payment

Mastercard documents three main ways to connect a website or app to the gateway. The choice decides how much card data your systems touch, and so how much PCI DSS work you carry.

Hosted Checkout. Your server creates a checkout session, and the gateway shows a payment page that collects the card details, so in Mastercard's words "you need not handle sensitive data at all". Mastercard notes this "may lower PCI compliance costs". The trade-off: you can only add your name and logo.

Hosted Session. You design the payment page, but the card number and other sensitive fields are hosted by the gateway inside it, and your server sends a session reference instead of card data.

Direct Payment. Your systems collect and send the card details. Mastercard marks this as SAQ-D, the full questionnaire for merchants who store, process or transmit card data.

Mastercard also says the gateway "does not enforce specific PCI compliance": your payment service provider and acquirer decide what they expect from you. And Commercial Bank of Kuwait's agreement says PCI DSS compliance is mandatory for its 2-Party model, where the merchant collects card details, while in its 3-Party model the payment server collects them on pages that "could be Bank or Payment Provider branded". For most stores, Hosted Checkout or Hosted Session keeps card data out of your systems.

Apple Pay on MPGS

Mastercard's page on Apple Pay in Hosted Checkout sets out these rules, as of 26 October 2026:

• Apple Pay is supported from API version 72 and later.
• It is only available for the full page redirect, not the Embedded Page.
• It works only when checkout runs on the Mastercard domain; Mastercard says support for private-label domains and embedded mode is in progress.
• Supported schemes are Mastercard, Visa, Amex, Discover and Jaywan, for credit and debit cards, on the Authorize and Pay operations.
• To get it: "Contact your partner bank and they can enable it for you."

Apple Pay can also run through KNET: Commercial Bank of Kuwait's form offers it under its KNET gateways, priced as described above. Providers also describe the Kuwaiti route differently. Amazon Payment Services' docs say "Apple Pay through KNET is a mandate requirement for all Apple Pay transactions in Kuwait", while Hesabe's Apple Pay docs list separate payment types for MPGS Apple Pay, Cybersource Apple Pay and KNET Apple Pay. We do not resolve that difference here. Confirm with your bank which route it supports, and for which cards, before you build. Our Apple Pay guide covers the Apple side, including domain verification.

Test accounts and credentials

You cannot open an MPGS sandbox yourself. Mastercard's docs say to request a test account from your payment service provider, which for most Kuwaiti merchants means the bank. Expect to give business details, your PCI choice (SAQ-A or SAQ-D), and the integration methods and services you need. When it is ready, you get credentials and a link to the Merchant Administration portal, and the test merchant ID is your merchant ID with TEST in front of it.

A few habits keep credentials safe when a developer does the work:

• Give the developer an operator, not your admin login. An administrator can create operators in Merchant Administration and grant "May Configure Integration Settings" so they can generate the API password.
• Treat the API password as a secret. Mastercard's docs say "Only you and Mastercard should have access to your password." It covers the whole merchant account; change it when people leave.
• Use a test certificate for certificate authentication. Mastercard notes a test certificate helps if you do not want to share the production certificate and private key with a third-party web integrator.
• Get your bank's agreement in writing before anyone outside your company holds production credentials, since the bank's contract puts the integration on you.

MPGS on WooCommerce

WooCommerce lets you install a payment plugin that talks to your own MPGS profile. Two are documented publicly (as of 26 October 2026).

Mastercard Gateway Module for WooCommerce (Fingent). Published on GitHub by Fingent Global Solutions under the Apache-2.0 licence. Version 1.5.4.1 was released on 26 October 2026. The README lists card payments, Hosted Checkout, Hosted Checkout Pay by Link and Hosted Session, plus Apple Pay ("only available for full page redirect in Hosted Checkout"), Google Pay and PayPal in Hosted Checkout, and KNET in Hosted Checkout only. For KNET, it says the feature "relies on real-time data integration with an external partner service". It also lists "Handling Fees" and "Surcharge" features, and discloses that from version 1.5.0 the plugin collects analytics, including store name, store URL and country, once live credentials are saved.

Mastercard Merchant Cloud. Listed on WordPress.org under a Mastercard author profile: version 1.0.1. It offers Hosted Session, Hosted Checkout embedded, and Hosted Checkout redirect, which the listing describes as "the lowest PCI effort". It needs PHP 8.0 or later, WooCommerce 9.0 or later and an SSL certificate. The listing does not mention Apple Pay or KNET.

Whichever you use, check its API version against your bank profile, and keep any surcharge option off (see below). Our WooCommerce guide covers the rest of the store setup.

MPGS on Shopify

Shopify works differently. Shopify's developer docs say "Only approved Partners can build payments extensions on Shopify's Payments Platform." A merchant or a freelance developer cannot plug a bank's MPGS profile into Shopify checkout. Card and KNET payments on a Shopify store come through payment apps from providers Shopify has approved. Our Shopify guide explains the options and what Shopify's terms say.

Do not add a fee for paying by card

Some plugins, including the Fingent module above, can add a surcharge for the customer. In Kuwait, do not use it for payment method fees. CBK Circular No. 2/RB, RBA, RK/600/2025 (Arabic), dated 30 September 2025, tells all local banks, e-payment service providers and e-money service providers to put a clause in their merchant agreements that bars charging the end customer in Kuwait any fee or extra amount for paying electronically, whatever the method. Providers must act against merchants who breach it, including suspending the service if needed. Price your products so the amount shown is the full amount the customer pays.

Questions to ask your bank before you build

1. Is your card gateway MPGS, and which API version does my profile support?
2. Which integration methods are enabled, and which PCI DSS self-assessment do you expect from me?
3. Can you enable Apple Pay, and through which route: MPGS, KNET, or both?
4. Can my profile accept KNET through MPGS, or do I need a separate KNET integration?
5. What are the setup fee, monthly rent and commission on the card gateway?
6. Who may hold the API credentials, and when do I get the TEST merchant ID?

How Rukn helps

Rukn is a Kuwait-based software team. We integrate MPGS and KNET for your own bank or gateway account: Hosted Checkout or Hosted Session on your site, server-side checks of the order status, refunds from your admin, and the same flows inside a mobile app. The merchant account, the contract and the settlement stay between you and your bank; money never passes through Rukn. This work is part of our website development service. Websites start from KD 799 and mobile apps from KD 1,999; the final quote depends on scope.