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ECONOMY
THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON CASH ECONOMY! Sunil Paul, the Co-Founder & Managing Director of Finesse, a global provider of digital transformation solutions discusses how cash payments still form the majority of consumer transactions in the region
SMARTSMB / June 2020
T
he maxim ‘cash is king’ still carries currency in the oil-exporting countries in the Middle East. In fact, cash remains the most widely used payment instrument in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the first and second biggest Arab economies in the world. While the UAE and Saudi have some of the highest levels of Internet and smartphone penetration in the region, and although non-cash payment instruments like credit/debit cards and mobile wallets gaining traction among the youth; in the UAE, for example, cash transactions accounted for 82 percent of total payment transaction volume in 2018, according to ResearchAndMarkets.com. Cash remains popular in GCC countries because of several factors: consumers see cash as a quicker and safer payment option which gives them more control on their spending and stay within their budgets. The large transient and unbanked blue-collar workforce in the region
