Dubai banks are providing great services for their customers. Both foreign and native banks are there in Dubai including all the global leaders in the banking sector. In addition to retail banking, Dubai banks are performing industrial transactions. The opening hours of Dubai banks vary from region to region. Banks are generally open from 8am to 12pm. Some of the banks will keep open from 4.30pm- 6.30 pm. Bank holidays are on Fridays. Some of the banks are strictly following the Islamic code of conduct. The banks that follow Islamic laws will not provide any interest for the deposits made and you have to provide only low interest for taking loans from these banks.
There are two types of banks in Dubai such as Commercial Banks and Islamic Banks. If you have to open the bank account, then you should have a resident visa. But HSBC banks do not require any resident visa for opening a bank account. Majority of the companies have some banks preferred for their staff. It is easy to open an account in the preferred bank of your employer. In order to open an account in Dubai banks, you need to have a passport with resident visa and salary letter issued by your employer.
Dubai banks will not provide a credit card easily till they find out the person can pay back the installments. To obtain a credit card, you should have regular job. If you are self employed, then you have to produce the income statement of several months. Most of the credit cards are free of cost or you have to pay 100 dirham each year. Gold cards are available free of cost or 400dhs every year. You have to give 500 to 100dhs every year to obtain platinum cards. Some of the banks are offering lifetime cards for free and some others provides materialistic benefits such as discounts for hotel rooms or meals, service memberships, home appliance and so on.
You should be careful about the hidden charges along with the credit card fees. Foreign banks are not the branches of their mother bank and they are running independently. These banks are running with the license from UAE Central Bank. Foreign banks have to pay corporation tax which is about 20% of the profits. If you will join the same bank of your home country, then you can have a quicker, cheaper and easy transfer of money.
Almost all Dubai banks have a requirement of a minimum current account balance of 500-1000 dhs. You have to pay a monthly fee of around 50-100dhs, if your minimum balance goes below the limit. You don’t have pay any kind of fees to open a new bank account. There is no minimum balance requirement for the savings account. You have to a fee of 1 to 1.5% for loan processing which is around 250 to 500dhs. Personal loans can be taken up to 20 times of the monthly salary. The maximum time of repayment is 48 months for the personal loans.