Opening of a bank should never be a complicated process and Dubai has passed a new regulation through which the investors and businesses can benefit from.
It was reported earlier that Dubai Economy has established a consortium partnership with six other United Arab Emirates (UAE) banks in which the citizens will be allowed to open an account instantaneously.
The banks included in the “KYC (Know Your Customer) Blockchain Consortium” include:
- Emirates NBD
- Emirates Islamic
- HSBC
- RAKBANK
- Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank
- Commercial Bank of Dubai
According to the information available, “…the authenticated and validated KYC data of companies will simultaneously be shared with financial institutions of their preference.”
Due to this, this will expedite the opening of a new bank account to reduce the burden for newly established companies. In addition to that, it will also eliminate the cost to register and manage KYC data for already registered companies. A source close to the matter was quoted saying, “this is in stark contrast to the status quo, whereby multiple paper-based KYC files are redundantly originated and managed in silos.”
Opening a new bank account remained a huge struggle for small businesses, freelancers, and investors because of tough requirements of various banks. This initiative will aim to make life much easier for all these people.
The deputy director-general of Dubai Economy, Ali Ibrahim, said:
The platform will offer a digital ‘Instant Bank Account’ functionality, allowing for faster and less cumbersome onboarding journey with banks and significantly improving the experience of new investors looking to establish themselves in the UAE. This in turn will boost customer satisfaction as well as the ease of doing business in the UAE as a whole.
Furthermore, Ali Ibrahim also claimed that this will soon become the common practice across the UAE and he invited all the financial institutions and licensing authorities to take the positive step and join the initiative of a more accessible future.
It has been revealed that the KYC platform will be launched within the first quarter of 2020 and once up and running, it will be open for additional qualified financial institutions and licensing authorities to join.
The corporate clients will experience seamless registration and account openings and enhanced KYC capabilities, according to Saud Al Jassem, who is the head of government banking at the Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank.
He further added:
Additionally, it will ensure the UAE, in line with the Vision 2021, is a world leader in terms of the ease of doing business in the country. ADCB looks forward to working with the DED, norbloc and the consortium members to expand the blockchain KYC Production Platform across the UAE.
Dubai Economy has made its aim clear of digitising the onboarding process and to make it more seamless, secure, and frictionless. The COO of RakBank, Geoff Stecyk, said that they are very excited to be a part of this revolution.
The concept of a Blockchain-based KYC platform will optimize costs by enabling financial and banking institutions to deviate from the outdated process of identification verification and take full advantage of today’s blockchain technology that has the potential to be faster, easier, safer and more efficient than the traditional verification processes.
