E-government initiatives of Dubai have been cynosure in the world panorama of cyber governance. This time Dubai e-Government Department has launched a virtual account for making government payments online, in collaboration with Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD). The government aims to ease the life of citizens and to provide innovative electronic channels of easy access anywhere and at any time. The service, called “Cash Online” is a new CBD product designed and developed for individual and corporate non-CBD account holders to open a free virtual account within minutes without the need to have a minimum balance following the submission of the required official documents. By virtue of this account, customers can now pay online for the fees of all Dubai government entities in a quick and hassle-free manner. To execute the same, CBD has opened up a gateway to let users create a free virtual account, allowing Corporate and individual users to be an account holder following the submission of required official documents. This hassle free virtual account would require no minimum balance. The account is linked to Dubai e-Government’s e-Pay portal such that payments for government services could be directly made from customer’s account with five of the major banks in United Arab Emirates. Last year, the government e-Pay portal collected a total amount of AED3.3 billion (US$898 million) through credit card payments, and usage of direct debit services rose by 10 fold, from 54,538 transactions in 2010 to 522,815 transactions in 2011. For information: http://www.dubaided.gov.ae