There’s a host of payment options out there in 2020 and many that are championing them. Dan Snook asks: is the industry going digital or still happy with the coins in its pockets?
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I’M currently writing this feature while on my last business trip of 2019 for InterGame (yay!). On the desk next to my laptop in my hotel room is a solitary AED5 note. I’ve almost managed to complete an entire week in Saudi Arabia and another in Dubai without using cash at all. The lonely five dirhams beside me was the change from having a hair cut at a barbershop. The cashier there looked at me as if I was offering him a damp herring rather than my iPhone to make payment. I had to scurry across the road to the nearest ATM while being carefully watched…
But that being the only time I had to withdraw notes from a hole-in-the-wall during a trip to the Middle East is telling - it was clearly the exception. And this is where we’re at, at this stage of the 21st century - I could have used cash for absolutely everything or not at all.
