Leading experts discussed ways to address the opportunities and challenges facing the booming e-commerce industry that is predicted to reach $15 billion by 2015.

The panel discussion on ‘The Future of E-Commerce,’ was hosted by Dubai Internet City (DIC).

It featured expert panellists from the UAE’s leading e-Commerce entities including Francis Barel, the business development manager, PayPal Mena; Gups Jutla, the head of business development, CyberSource; Hisham Hammoud, the chief operations officer, Network International; Omar Soudodi, the managing director, PayFort; and Samer Choucair, the chief operations officer at Groupon.

Issues including digital platform optimisation and local currency transactions were explored during the discussion which was moderated by CEO of JadoPado, Omar Kassim. The event saw several experts discuss the explosive growth of e-commerce in the past few years.

Amongst the many challenges and opportunities facing the e-Commerce industry across the region, panellists discussed the merits of their respective payment gateways, the ongoing threat posed by cybercrime, and credit card penetration and its impact on e-Commerce, they stated.

Speaking at the event, Majed Al Suwaidi, the managing director of DIC and Dubai Outsource Zone said: "There is a real buzz around e-Commerce and its growth potential across the Middle East. As we have heard from our panellists today, there are significant opportunities for E-Commerce in the UAE which is creating enormous change in the way people buy products and services."

“The UAE government is leading the way through the introduction of initiatives to facilitate the growth of the industry, and recently introduced the e–Pay gateway to shape an effective e-Commerce environment. The initiative has served to ensure safe financial transactions and encourage further internet usage.” he added.-TradeArabia News Service