Digital payments and cross-border business key growth enablers for freelancers and SMBs across the UAE

Digital payments and cross-border business key growth enablers for freelancers and SMBs across the UAE

Dubai UAE: PayPal, a global leader in digital payments has launched the findings of its “UAE SMB and Freelancer Digital Readiness Survey” in partnership with British market research and data analytics firm, YouGov. The research aims to analyze how businesses in the UAE have adapted during the pandemic by adopting a digital first approach and leveraging the cross-border opportunity. The research also highlights barriers to digital adoption and key priorities for freelancers and SMB’s.

Conducted between January to February 2022, PayPal’s UAE and Freelancer Digital Readiness Survey analyses the impact of COVID-19 on small businesses, the key verticals of growth and growing acceptance of digital payments. The results are based on interviews with 300 UAE based SMBs and freelancers.

Digital adoption and international expansion continue to be a focus in 2022

Despite the uncertainty of business longevity going into the pandemic, our survey highlighted that half of the respondents saw a positive impact of the pandemic on their business. The key factors included an increase in productivity as employees worked from home (33%), reduction in overhead costs (travel, real estate costs) (32%) and the ability to access a global customer base outside of the UAE (31%). These findings demonstrate that businesses have not