Check with your company if they have any special arrangements with a particular bank in Dubai. Sometimes you may get preferential rates on money transfers, or lower minimum balance requirements. You may also see your salary a day or two earlier if you're at the same bank as the one your company uses.
All (or nearly all) banks in Dubai and the UAE will have a minimum balance requirement for a current account ranging from 1000 to 10,000 dhs. Update 28 Feb 2011: Central Bank rules changed and banks were limited to AED 3,000 minimum balance requirement, effective from March or April 2011? There's a monthly fee of 50-100 dhs if you go below that limit during the month - for most banks you only have to do that once to get hit with the fee. A savings account with a Dubai bank usually has a much lower, or no minimum balance requirement. Some banks also have a minimum salary requirement to operate a current account, of AED 10,000 or 20,000 per month.
Most people will eventually collect a story or two about poor customer service. What seems to happen is that you open an account at a bank (based on where your company banks, location, or what someone else suggests). Eventually you'll get annoyed with something they've done, close your account and repeat the process at another bank. Usually this only happens once every couple of years or so, so it's unlikely you'll run out of banks for this procedure.
New UAE Central Bank maximum limits on fees and loans - update 28 February 2011
Regulations Regarding Bank Loans & Other Services Offered to Individual Customers - published by the UAE Central Bank (dated 23 February 2011 but not released until 28 February 2011?).The UAE Central Bank issued a statement detailing new borrowing limits and caps on fees charged by banks in the UAE. According to the document, "These regulations shall be published in the Official Gazette in both Arabic and English, and shall come into effect one month after date of its publication," but publication date was not supplied. The new rules replace Circular No 12/93 dated 23/2/1993, Central Bank clarifications ref. DMM/1263/93 dated 6/7/1993, and any other related notices except for Notice No 1850/2004 dated 14/6/2004 regarding Armed Forces Personnel. Some details of the new fee limits are:
- Personal loans allowed up to a maximum of 20x the monthly salary of the borrower.
- Maximum repayment period allowed for personal loans is 48 months (4 years).
- Car loan maximum of 80% of the value of the vehicle, with maximum repayment period of 60 months (5 years).
- Overall total limit on monthly repayments is 50% of a borrowers net income including salary and any other revenue. This includes personal loans, credit card repayments, home mortgages, car loans, any other financing.
- Credit cards to be issued only to customers earning a monthly salary of at least AED 5,000 (annual salary of AED 60,000), or "against a pledged deposit" of at least AED 60,000.
- Account opening fees - nil.
- Minimum balance - maximum of AED 3,000.
- Account balance below minimum account balance - AED 25.
- Standing order setup - maximum fee 50 dhs.
- Standing order payment dishonoured - 25 dhs fee.
- New chequebook - maximum 25 dhs (first one free?).
- Bank check issue fee (Manager's Cheque) - 30 dirhams.
- Bounced check fee - AED 100? But no charge if bouncing a cheque written to your self ("deposited in own account")?
- Account Balance Letter - AED 50.
- No Liability Certificate - AED 100.
- Release Letter - AED 50.
- Dormant Account charge - nil ("without fees").
- Teller fees - AED 10 per transaction but first 6 per month should be free.
- Pin code replacement fee AED 25.
- Account closing fee AED 100 (but only if bank account closed within 1 year of opening, unknown if any fee after 1 year or how much).
- Utility bill payments at teller - AED 10 per bill.
- Foreign currency transactions processing fee - 2% of the amount (unclear if maximum or fixed).
PDF download of new Central Bank rules and fees at www.centralbank.ae/en/pdf/notices/RegulationsRegardingBankLoans.pdf.
How many banks and branches in Dubai and UAE?
- Number of banks in UAE is 52 at end of 2009, unchanged from 2008 (24 UAE banks, and 28 foreign banks).
- Number of bank branches in the UAE increased by 10% in 2009 from 860 to 948 (includes head offices, banking service units, branches, etc) - from UAE Central Bank data report.
- Number of ATMs in the UAE increased 48% from 2,420 at end of 2008 to 3,599 by the end of 2009.
- Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) branches up from 44 to 52, and ATMs from 116 to 204 in 2009. Target for 2010 is 70 branches (comments by ADIB CEO Tirad Mahmoud, reported on 25 February 2010 in Emirates Business 24-7).
- RAK Bank opened 2 new branches and 12 ATMs in 2009 (comments by Graham Honeybill, General Manager of RAKBank in same report).
Other boring banking statistics for the UAE and the Financial Access 2010 report
- Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) and the World Bank started producing in 2009 an annual report about financial services worldwide - Financial Access 2009, and Financial Access 2010 (publication date 14 September 2010?).
- Accounts per 1,000 adults in UAE - 1,751 (average deposit and loan value per account not available).
- Branches per 100,000 adults in UAE - 21.
- ATMs per 100,000 adults in UAE - 99, ATMs per 1,000 sq km - 43, Point-of-Sale (POS) machine figures not available.
- For headings of table information in the report appendices listed below, the UAE had few or no entries which could be taken as an indication that the financial industry is poorly regulated, or perhaps that the UAE doesn't think much of the CGAP and World Bank surveying and didn't give them any data.
- Aspects Under the Purview of the Financial Regulator
- Financial Inclusion: Areas of Reform in 2009
- Consumer Protection: Disclosure Requirements at Account Opening - No requirement for banks or financial institutions to provide standardised calculation of Annual Percentage Rate (APR), minimum balance requirement, information about fees or penalties, plain language explanation of terms and conditions, etc
- Consumer Protection: Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement by Supervisory Agency
- Consumer Protection: Requirements for Periodic Disclosure - No requirements reported for banks or financial institutions to provide periodic statements, fees and charges for deposit or credit products, except for a periodic reporting requirement for unregulated financial institutions.
- Consumer Protection: Fair Treatment, Dispute Resolution, and Recourse - No fair treatment provisions reported
- Small and Medium Enterprise Finance - no agency monitors SME lending, no definition of SME reported, no SME lending information reported
- Consumer Protection Legislation (Law) - none out of the 4 headings (General, Explicit, Financial Sector, Other) checked, and no comments (same as Bangladesh, Belarus, China, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, Romania, Rwanda, Sudan, Yemen, and several Caribbean islands)
- Countries such as Botswana, Moldova, Mongolia had similar low levels of regulation as the UAE. It was difficult to find a country with any less regulation.
- Then again, maybe the report should be taken with a pinch of salt. Zimbabwe scored consistently higher than the UAE with respect to consumer protection and other regulation, but would you rather keep your money in a bank in Zimbabwe or the UAE?
Best banks in Dubai and UAE 2009
Ethos Consultancy released their 5th annual UAE banking survey results on 14 November 2009, covering 27 retail banks in the UAE. Ethos researchers visited bank branches 675 times, made 405 calls to call centers, and made 270 online enquires through bank websites. Best overall bank was RAK Bank (for the 4th year in a row), ahead of Dubai Bank in second place, and First Gulf Bank in third place.| Category | First place winner 2009 | First place 2008 |
|---|---|---|
| Best Overall Bank | National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah (RAK Bank) | RAK Bank |
| Best International Bank | Lloyds TSB Dubai (also in 2006-2008) | Lloyds TSB Dubai |
| Best Sharia Compliant (Islamic) Bank | Dubai Bank | Emirates Islamic Bank |
| Best Branch Visit Performance | RAK Bank | |
| Best Call Center Performance | First Gulf Bank | Dubai Islamic Bank |
| Best Website Performance | First Gulf Bank (also in 2008) | First Gulf Bank |
| Most Improved Bank | Dubai Bank (was in 21st place in 2008) | |
| Best New Bank | Al Hilal Islamic Bank |
