Governments play a key role in cashless society

Dubai: The key differentiator for electronic payments to gain traction is when the governments come in, a senior MasterCard official said yesterday during an interview with Gulf News.

“The government decides the roadmap for cashless society. The biggest difference we made in Africa is when we tied-up with the governments,” said Michael Miebach, president of MasterCard Middle East and Africa.

He said that 80 per cent of the transactions in South Korea are done through electronic payments.

The UAE is the biggest market in the region for MasterCard.

MasterCard had issued 75 million cards in the region and the region is the fastest growing market. “It took us 25 years to get to 50 million cards and in just another three years since that milestone, we’re getting close to doubling that,” he said.

New technologies

Adoption of new technologies is fuelling the fast growth in the region.

“With the Expo 2020 and mobile government initiative, the growth is really going to happen in the UAE. Many countries are still in e (e-government) but UAE has moved to m (mobile government),” he said.  GulfNews