·       Research reveals motivators for cash usage and highlights opportunities to drive financial inclusion and enhance payment experience for consumers and businesses in Qatar

·       Cash usage remains for peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions including tips and money exchanges between friends and family as well as everyday spending

·       Visa’s Shashank Singh: Despite progress with Qatar’s digital transformation, opportunity remains to further digitize commerce in the country

While Qatar is at the forefront of digital payments, around a quarter (23%) of transactions of consumers surveyed is still in cash, according to the second edition of Visa’s ‘Where Cash Hides’ research.

The research, based on a survey of 2,800 individuals across GCC, examined the overall frequency of and motivations for cash usage. It identifies cash-heavy categories and proposes easier, more secure digital payment solutions for both consumers and local businesses. The first edition of Where Cash Hides was conducted in 2023.

Key survey findings

Cash in specific transactions (by % of consumers surveyed):

In Qatar, P2P transactions (39% vs 35% in 2023) and everyday spending (31% vs 27% 2023) form a large portion of cash usage.

·       Within the P2P segment, tips was the top category (54% vs 39%) where surveyed Qatar consumers use cash followed by money exchanges between friends and family (51% vs 42%). International transfers through exchange houses saw the biggest drop in cash usage (15% vs 21%) with rent also showing a decline (35% vs 37%), indicating progress in digitizing payments in those categories.

·       For everyday spending, taxis was the top category (50% up from 37% for offline taxi; 42% up from 33% for app-based taxi), followed by farmers markets (32% vs 33%) and public transport (31% vs 27%). The biggest change was bill payment which saw cash usage increase from 9% in 2023 to 22%. Discretionary spend also saw significant increase in cash usage (24% vs 14%) – top categories include cinema (35% vs 18%), events (31% vs 14%), education (29% vs 14%) and electronics (26% vs 14%).  

Motivators for cash usage (by % of consumers surveyed):

·       The top reasons respondents prefer cash for P2P are convenience (32%) and speed (24%) and for everyday spends speed (24%) as well as convenience and habit (23%).

Implications and solutions:

·       Efforts to introduce convenient and secure solutions such as Visa Direct (P2P, tips and other disbursements, and remittances), Click to Pay (better online checkout experience) and Tap to Phone (low-cost acceptance solution for SMBs, freelancers and taxi) will further drive digital payments and increase card acceptance in the categories identified.

·       Encouraging mobile and contactless payments also presents a pathway to increasing digital payments usage for everyday expenses. This requires education on acceptance and security of digital payments for both banked and unbanked populations.

Shashank Singh, Visa’s VP and General Manager for Qatar and Kuwait, commented, “Despite progress with digital payment adoption in Qatar, 23% of consumer transactions are still in cash. For Visa, this represents an opportunity to further drive financial inclusion and digitize commerce in the country. Our second edition of Visa’s Where Cash Hides research pinpoints precisely where and how Visa, together with our partners, can help grow the digital economy. At Visa, we remain committed to supporting the Qatar government’s cashless agenda and enabling local businesses in creating a better payment experience for everyone, everywhere in the country."

Despite cash usage, consumers’ overall reliance on cash continues to remain low.  For 58% of respondents, only 1-2 out of their last 10 transactions were in cash. Only 4% of respondents claimed that all (10 out of last 10) transactions were made with cash.