In the third segment of the first panel of our CoE E-Commerce event this June, Dan Stuart, the managing director of the Mideast for LivingSocial, discusses some of the central issues involved in using payment gateways in the Arab World today, addressing competition between cashU and Network International, how payment gateways allow tokenization to make payment on a given e-commerce website simpler, and how payment gateways deal with cash-on-delivery (COD). 

About 50% of orders are COD, says Ronanldo Mouchawar of Souq.com, so in order to build a brand that customers trust, you must offer COD. 

When it comes to trying to sway customers away from cash-on-delivery, towards other payment methods like credit cards, it's not only an issue in the Arab World, says Cyril Zimmerman of payment gateway Hi-Pay. Other countries like Brazil and Portugal are also very cash-focused, and, "for the moment," he points out, "the vast majority of transactions… can be done with cash."

Yet, says Stephen Leeds of Visa, government e-portals and bill payment systems online can help people understand the ease of using credit cards for transactions.