Of course, everyone needs a bank account at the place, city and country where they are to work. In most countries such as Dubai, the main condition of getting a bank account is to have a job. Usually bank accounts have to be dealt with right after signing the work contract, so that you can give your bank details to your workplace as soon as possible. Let us see how we deal with opening a bank account in Dubai.
Dubai is full of banks, which is natural considering the fact that it has extreme business operations all the time. Everyone needs a bank account, let them be individuals or companies in this world someone really cannot get along without having one. Opening a bank account is free in Dubai in most cases; let it be at a national or an international bank. The most important is, to have a couple of things with you when you are visiting a bank for this very reason:
• First, you need to have your passport with you, which is no big deal, as you need to have it normally all the time. Make a copy of your passport in advance, to make operations easier. Some banks will require you to sign it in attendance of the bank official so do not sign it in advance.
• Make a copy of the residence visa in your passport. Residence visa is dealt with in the same time as employment, as one cannot really go without the other, you need to have a workplace before getting the residence visa. Most importantly, this is subject also to your health card. So, you will need to deal with a couple of things within a couple of days.
• If you don’t have your residence visa yet, you can also handle the copy of your official document stating that your residence visa application has been started.
• You need to have another form of identification with you; the best is to have your driving licence with you, which you have copied in advance.
• You need to have an official document from your employer stating your official salary. This is called Salary Letter or Salary Certificate. Employers usually know what you need for your processes so in most cases they will handle you these documents by the time of signing your contract. You may need a Letter of Acceptance too.
• Open a bank account in the bank that your employer tells you. This means that is the company’s bank and this will make all salary payments to go through much easier without extra time and costs.
• There are a very few international banks as HSBC which don’t require residence visa but in return you will need to pay quite a high fee.
You will automatically get a debit card with your normal savings bank account. They may want to give you a chequebook too, but refuse that, as no banks of Dubai accept cheques in real only under very specific conditions with a very long and hard procedure. Do not forget to take every document together with the copies of these as many banks do not like to copy and some may go that far to send you away to return with the copies. This way the procedure of opening a bank account will be longer, however normally it does not take more than half an hour to make it. Before opening a Dubai bank account always ask what the minimum balance is.