UAE residents favour a cashless economy

A large majority of UAE residents favour a cashless economy, indicated a YouGov survey. According to the survey, 63% of UAE residents consider it very or fairly positive if their country became cashless. Men are more likely than women to hold this view, 67% vs 55%. Preference for electronic payment is also higher among high-income households earning AED25,000+ monthly than the rest at 76%.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, people seem to prefer going cashless and slightly more than half (52%) claimed to have paid in cash less often since the pandemic. According to the YouGov survey, respondents within the income group of AED10,001- 20,000 were more likely to say this than the rest of the income group members.

However, a small proportion (17%) have paid in cash more often since the outbreak with high-income individuals (AED25,000+) more likely than others to have done so.

The availability of cash has not been affected amidst the crisis and residents have access to cash both from free ATMS (with 85% saying they find it very or fairly easy to access cash from here) as well as from an ATM that charges a fee for a transaction (68% saying this).

In their day-to-day lives, cash is mostly used to make payments for very or fairly cheap items in physical stores, while cards, debit or credit, are used to make more expensive purchases. Very few are using digital modes of payment for any of these purchases.

When it comes to making purchases in shops, a higher number of respondents consider it important to be able to make payments through credit or debit cards (79%), compared to cash (56%) or digital means like Apple Pay, Samsung Pay (58%), among others. As a large majority of UAE residents favour a cashless economy, contactless payment, either through cards (86%) or digital wallets (69%), appears to be more important to high-income members (AED25,000+) than the rest of the population.

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