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UAE small businesses eye global expansion as key to growth, Visa study finds

As digital payments go from being an option to a way of life, new research reveals what’s next: cross-border sales

Ninety-three per cent of surveyed business owners in the UAE plan to expand into new geographies as a focus for growth. This is substantially higher compared to 79 per cent globally, a report showed on Wednesday.

A high number (83 per cent vs. 72 per cent globally) of consumers said they already feel comfortable buying across borders.

The findings were revealed in the seventh edition of Global Back to Business Study by Visa, which found that a majority of surveyed small and micro businesses (SMBs) plan to prioritise cross-border sales as they look to scale to new geographies. Additionally, the survey found that a growing number of consumers are embracing cashless transactions, with nearly 75 per cent of surveyed shoppers predicting they will use digital payments more frequently this year.

“It used to be that only big businesses could scale to access customers across the country or around the world, but today’s small business owner can be virtually borderless,” said Dr. Saeeda Jaffar, Visa’s SVP and Group Country Manager for GCC. “At Visa, we’re seeing the small business mindset shift from survival mode to growth mode, as SMBs harness the power of digital payments to improve efficiencies, reach new audiences and simply thrive in today’s increasingly digital world.”

Looking beyond pandemic-era challenges to the full arc of opportunities ahead, Visa’s Global Back to Business Study surveyed small business owners and consumers in ten markets, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore, the UAE and US.

While 100 per cent (vs. 95 per cent globally) of small business owners in the UAE surveyed planned to be cashless “someday,” 42 per cent (vs. 51 per cent globally) planned to make that shift in the next two years. Consumers lead this shift, with 51 per cent (vs. 55 per cent globally) of those surveyed predicting they will use digital payments more in the coming year.

Seventy per cent of consumers (vs. 49 per cent globally) intended to shop more at local businesses this year as they look to support the local economy (54 per cent).

An overwhelming 92 per cent of UAE shoppers say a business’s sustainability practices have at least somewhat of an impact on their decision to purchase from them (compared to 68 per cent globally). Nearly all (96 per cent) are willing to pay more for products or services to ensure they are sustainable (vs. 77 per cent globally).

Business owners cited offering new products or services (44 per cent), investing more in marketing (42 per cent), and increasing social media presence (41 per cent) as the top opportunities to reach new customers, with 37 per cent eyeing accepting new forms of payment as a crucial area that can help them improve their business.

In 2020, Visa Foundation announced a five-year, $200 million strategic commitment to support the establishment and growth of thriving small and micro businesses with a focus on women entrepreneurs. Through its investments and grant-making activity, Visa Foundation partners with organizations that provide catalytic capital, capacity building and support services. Additionally, Visa Foundation uses capital as a tool to enable the flow of investment capital to gender diverse SMBs.