The Dubai-based executive explains why folding money is a thing of the past Here is a personal insight into the changes in regional retailing during the pandemic: Spinneys shoppers have virtually given up paying with cash. The big queue in my local branch in Dubai is now for the automated payment machines, rather than the physical checkouts, and even at the tills payment is overwhelmingly by card or phone app rather than cash. I talked to Simon Haslam, Dubai-based CEO of Network International — the company that processes most of those electronic payments in the UAE and beyond — to find out why. “COVID-19 is accelerating the shift from cash to digital. What’s so exciting about my business is that the Middle East and Africa is one of the last regions where this shift is happening, and that presents big opportunities for us even with the short-term disruption of the pandemic,” he told Arab News. After many years in the payments and banking business with some of the biggest corporations in the world and in places as varied as Brazil and eastern Europe, Haslam joined Network in 2017 and led the company to an initial public offering (IPO) in London last year. But even his wide experience could not have prepared him for what happened earlier this year. “We were having a good year until February, and then the lights just turned off. We noticed first that fewer Chinese were coming and spending, and then the situation changed rapidly. By the end of April volumes were 60 percent down,” he said. In normal times, about 25 percent of his business comes from foreign visitor spending, which virtually vanished overnight when air travel was halted, also hitting online payments for flights, a significant part of Network’s volume. Things have improved since the UAE began to reopen, and he said that domestic volumes are now 90 percent back to pre-COVID levels. But there has been a distinct shift in retail behavior. Network experienced a 60 percent growth in online business by the end of June, and although this is “flattening” now that malls and stores are open again, it could have permanent effects. “There has been a shift to ‘omni-channel’ shopping, with people browsing in the malls and then going home to buy online, for example, or ‘click and collect,’ when shoppers choose online and then go to the store to pick up,” Haslam said.