Qashio CEO on how Dubai’s cashless push is changing business spending
Historically, reliance on cash has created friction across finance operations, reveals Armin Moradi, CEO and founder of Qashio
03 February, 2026
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Dubai’s ambition to become one of the world’s leading cashless cities is no longer a future-state vision. With more than 80 per cent of payments already digital and a government strategy expected to add Dhs100bn to the digital economy, the shift is now forcing businesses to rethink how money moves inside their organisations.
For Armin Moradi, CEO and founder of Qashio, the transition is not just about payment methods, but about business velocity, visibility and control.
“Dubai’s Cashless Strategy will be a positive shift in how businesses fundamentally manage everyday finances,” Moradi said. “Velocity will be key moving forward.”
Historically, reliance on cash has created friction across finance operations. “Heavy dependence on cash has led to delayed book closures, slower payments, and overall slower decision-making and growth,” he said. Beyond inefficiency, there is also financial leakage. “There’s the very real financial impact of petty cash leakages and administrative inefficiencies that come with manual processes.”
Digitisation, in contrast, changes the operating model. “By digitising spend, businesses gain instant visibility into their finances, more accurate data, and the ability to make decisions faster and with greater confidence,” Moradi said. “This level of transparency allows companies to scale more efficiently, while significantly reducing the risk of fraud, theft, and petty cash leakages that are inherent in cash-based systems.”
The challenge of replacing petty cash
While the direction of travel is clear, replacing petty cash and manual expense claims is not friction-free. Moradi said one of the biggest challenges is uneven adoption across the economy.
“Some older, more traditional businesses still don’t fully accept digital payments,” he said. “While this is changing, primarily driven by governance requirements and consumer behaviour, there are still pockets of the economy catching up.”
That unevenness creates operational risk. “As adoption in certain pockets of the economy is slower than others, two visible issues surface,” Moradi said. “First, it adds unnecessary complexity instead of simplifying expense management if adoption would be unified. Second, it introduces inconsistent business practices, governance challenges and security concerns.”
Manual handling of financial data is a growing liability. “Sensitive financial data is often stored manually and physically or on personal devices posing a data risk either by loss of the physical documentation or off offshore data centres where mobile apps are stored,” he said.
A fully digital environment fundamentally reshapes the role of finance teams. Instead of retrospective control, oversight becomes real time.
“Cashless businesses benefit from instant visibility and control,” Moradi said. “Because all transactions are digitised and connected to a centralised system, finance teams know in real time how much money has been spent and where.”
Control also becomes preventative rather than corrective. “They can also control cash outflows instantly using digital spend management tools: setting limits, approving vendors, and restricting where and how money can be spent,” he said. “This helps mitigate fraud, control spending, and enforce budgets without slowing the business down.”
For employees, clarity improves compliance. “There’s no ambiguity around what is and isn’t allowed,” Moradi said. “Only approved budgets and vendors can be paid, and any out-of-policy purchases are instantly rejected.”
“This shifts compliance from a manual, after-the-fact process to something that’s built into how spending happens in the first place,” he added.
Why SMEs stand to gain the most
Moradi believes small and medium-sized enterprises have the most to gain from the cashless transition, precisely because their margin for error is smaller.
“SMEs sit in a tricky middle ground,” he said. “They’ve found product–market fit, but they haven’t yet scaled to the level of large enterprises.”
At this stage, discipline matters. “Unlike large enterprises, SMEs don’t have the luxury of doing an ‘okay’ job with expense tracking,” Moradi said. “One miscalculation, delayed reconciliation, or late payment can be the difference between a longer runway and missed payroll.”
Digital payments change how SMEs are perceived by lenders and investors. “Digital payment adoption centralises all spending in one system, keeping financial records clean, accurate, and up to date,” he said. “This level of visibility and discipline signals maturity to investors and lenders, strengthens an SME’s credibility, and makes it far easier to assess risk.”
Access to capital follows. “As a result, access to financing and credit improves significantly, especially when digital payment platforms offer credit or financing natively, removing friction from the process entirely,” Moradi said.
In a cashless economy, the tools that replace cash matter as much as the payments themselves. Moradi sees digital cards as a major upgrade on traditional corporate cards.
“Digital cards allow businesses to create temporary or purpose-specific cards for individual vendors or transactions, significantly reducing the risk of fraud, overcharging, or misuse,” he said.
Control is granular. “When combined with preset balances and spending rules, finance teams can control exactly where a card can be used, how much can be spent, and over what period of time,” Moradi said. “Making it far easier to enforce strict budgets and prevent overspending.”
AI completes the loop. “AI-powered reconciliation and real-time reporting then close the loop,” he said. “Transactions are matched automatically, spend is visible instantly, and finance teams can close their books accurately and on time, without manual effort.”
“Together, these tools shift finance from reactive clean-up to proactive control,” Moradi added, “which is essential in a fully cashless economy.”
One concern businesses often raise is whether digital spending tools give employees too much freedom. Moradi argues the opposite: ambiguity, not autonomy, drives overspending.
“A lot of overspending doesn’t come from bad intent, but from human error and grey areas in policy,” he said.
He offered a simple example. “A company has a policy of Dhs100 per meal. If a meal comes to Dhs101, it’s likely a manager will approve it during expense review. Multiply that flexibility across teams and months, and budgets start to slip without anyone noticing.”
Unclear rules also slow execution. “New employees are often unclear about what they can and can’t expense,” Moradi said. “That confusion slows down decision-making and delays critical purchases, which hurts velocity.”
Digital tools remove that friction. “Clear rules define what’s in and out of policy before a transaction happens,” he said. “Employees are empowered to spend with confidence… while finance teams maintain strict control over budgets and governance.”
As transaction volumes move fully digital, Moradi believes businesses must focus on one critical area: outflow control.
“Every business has two main cash flows: inflow and outflow,” he said. “While both matter, actively managing outflow is arguably more critical.”
“Uncontrolled outflow leads to shorter runways, tighter budgets, and a poor spend culture,” Moradi said. The solution lies in structured spend management. “Businesses should prioritise strong spend management, whether by optimising internal workflows or adopting digital tools built for fraud prevention, payment security, and regulatory compliance.”
The benefits extend beyond daily operations. “This also simplifies downstream requirements like VAT filing and audits,” he said. “In a fully digital economy, controlling cash outflow is no longer just a finance function, but a shared collective responsibility and essential business function.”
Who will thrive—and who will fall behind
Looking ahead, Moradi sees a widening gap between businesses that adapt early and those that delay.
“Over the next three to five years, businesses that struggle to adapt to Dubai’s cashless economy will lack real-time visibility into spending, rely on manual processes, and face slower decision-making as a result,” he said.
The consequences are tangible. “This often leads to delayed tax filings, higher compliance risk, and potential penalties,” Moradi said.
In contrast, leaders will look very different. “Businesses that thrive will have digital spend management tools in place that centralise payments, provide instant visibility, and enforce controls by default,” he said.
“In a cashless economy, the ability to move quickly, stay compliant, and maintain control over spending will be the key differentiator between companies that scale and those that fall behind.”
Read: Murat Cagri Suzer on Network International’s blueprint for an AI-driven cashless society
