UAE ‘very close’ to becoming a cashless society

Dubai could see $2.2bn uptick in the economy by adopting more cashless facilities, say experts.

The UAE is moving ever closer to becoming a cashless society, attendees at the Success 2020 Arabian Business forum were told.

Multiple government initiatives in the UAE have led to a sharp increase in digital transactions.

“There’s a lot of momentum at the moment and I think that’s what’s important,” Shahebaz Khan, GM for UAE at Visa told the forum.

“The UAE has a young, dynamic population and we are very quick at adopting new things. There is a huge penetration of mobile phone devices. The government is extremely supportive. Earlier this year we had a week where the government organisations decided that they were not going to accept cash at the counters, and that led to people going online to carry out transactions.”

Khan said the UAE has an advantage its move towards cashless as consumers are quick to adopt new tech and merchants are equally adept at making the infrastructure available.

MORE: https://www.arabianbusiness.com/banking-finance/431706-uae-very-close-to-becoming-cashless-society