UAE’s digital payments market set to outpace cash use

UAE consumers, businesses, merchants, banks, forex exchanges, and even government service providers will be handling far less cash by 2020, according to the digital payments service company, Trriple.

Annually, the UAE counts USD 230 billion in consumer payments to 170 government entities and more than 350,000 merchants.  And yet cash accounts for more than 75% of all transactions in the Emirates, a number the company says is set to plunge as demand increases for a wide range of payment services, from mobile wallets and mobile point-of-sale to electronic payments and global money transfers.

Trriple, a startup born in the UAE, is a first-of-its-kind, next generation, customer-centric digital payments service provider whose payments platform enables both the unbanked using cash, and the banked using cards, to be able to make mobile payments on a mass scale.

“We are poised to usher in the ‘cashless society’ here in the UAE,” says Ahmed Fasih Akhtar, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Trriple, on the sidelines of the 35th Annual GITEX Technology Week in Dubai, an event the company is sponsoring.

“By 2020, the UAE will be realizing an ‘anytime, anyplace’ approach to payments, a fascinating new dynamic that will allow for greater economic inclusion of the unbanked and under-banked across the country. We see strong nationwide demand for a multipurpose, cross-bank mobile wallet,” Akhtar adds.

In order to best support the payment demands of the UAE, Trriple has brought together a strategic partnership eco-system composed of best-in-class technology organizations, to include global giant, Ericsson. These partnerships will allow Trriple to leverage their core competencies in m-commerce technology, mobile point-of-sale technology, high volume transaction processing, and digital ID verifications.

“We easily turn mobile devices into a convenient and secure way to send, spend, and receive money – even when customers don’t have bank accounts.  Thus, we are proud to be supporting Trriple in bringing more economic opportunity and consumer happiness to the people of the UAE,” says Rutger Reman, President of Industry and Society Unit of Ericsson Region Middle East.

The Trriple mobile commerce platform offers highly secure and convenient payment solutions that include NFC between consumers holding its mobile wallet and merchants deploying its mobile point of sale terminal.

Mobile wallet users can fund, or ‘top-up’, their accounts in several ways: ATM machine; credit or debit cards; cash-in at certain locations; and direct debit service or funds transfer system.
Trriple, as a bank-led mobile wallet provider has also partnered with major UAE banks to facilitate digital payments on its platform.
According to Cap Gemini’s World Payments Report 2014, mobile payments from 2011-2015 are expected to grow more than 60% to 47 billion transactions.