Could the Middle East ever become a cashless society?

“It is inevitable, in the Middle East as in the rest of the world, that consumers will gravitate towards cashless payment systems where they find them more convenient and are happy that they are secure. There is nothing wrong with that. But for a society go the full way and remove the option of paying with cash would create total reliance on electronic systems, which can and do fail. It would discriminate against small traders, for example in open air markets, who will inevitably face disproportionate costs when processing transactions,” argues journalist Ross Clark, author of the War Against Cash.