Healy Consultants’ advice on choosing the right corporate bank in Dubai

DUBAI, UAE - Sept. 14, 2015 - PRLog -- When setting up a presence in Dubai, most entrepreneurs and investors especially foreigners prefer opening corporate bank accounts for their businesses with leading banking institutions with a global presence. The banks given proclivity by Clients in such cases always include Citibank, Barclays, Standard Chartered or HSBC, given their dominance in the industry.

However in the recent past, unknown to most foreign entrepreneurs, these foreign banks have increasingly pulled out or trimmed their services in Dubai and the UAE in general leaving prominent local banks to take up these opportunities.

The withdrawal of foreign banks from the UAE started back in 2010 with the Royal Bank of Scotland selling its business with at least 250,000 customers to Abu Dhabi Commercial bank.

Then followed Lloyds Banking Group in 2012 selling its shares to HSBC and later Barclays bank, also selling its retail arm in 2013 to Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank and closing at least 1,000 individual and 500 corporate bank accounts.

This exodus has however been analysed by professionals as a way of foreign banks pulling back on their offshore operations due to stiff competition from highly liquid local banks and therefore refocusing on their home headquarters.

Standard Chartered bank also followed suit last year by closing a greater number of their SME and corporate accounts in September and October, citing their actions on an anti-money laundering agreement with the authorities in the US.

“Due to their high liquidity status and better balance sheet potential, local banks in Dubai have posed serious competition to their foreign counterparts hence the exit,” the Managing Director of a leading business consultancy in Dubai Healy Consultants, Aidan Healy, says.

“Foreign entrepreneurs looking to secure corporate bank accounts in Dubai should therefore consider local banks such as Mashreq bank, Emirates bank, First Gulf bank among others.” He adds.

The often preferred foreign banks including Standard Chartered, Barclay, HSBC and Citibank currently do not open new corporate bank accounts. Banking institutions in Dubai have also generally tightened their regulations with respect to opening of both resident and non-resident corporate accounts. As opposed to earlier years, Clients now have to visit the respective bank branches as part of KYC process in order to open an account.

Foreign businesses experience even more added regulations as they are required to consularize their company documents with their local embassies and ministry of foreign affairs as well as the ministry in Dubai before submitting the documents to the bank; a process that is both costly and highly time consuming.

Healy Consultants is a professional corporate services provider headquartered in Singapore and with a presence in the UAE since the year 2003. The company aids entrepreneurs looking to establish their business in Dubai with, among others, company registration, tax and vat registration, assistance with obtaining business licenses and official addresses, opening a corporate bank account and obtaining work or residence visas.