June 12, 2024 • 21 mins
Watch on YouTube https://youtu.be/w8nul5d7vcA
In this highly requested episode of Opportunity Awaits, Aaron Henriques dives into his personal journey of setting up both corporate and personal bank accounts in Dubai. This episode is especially helpful for free zone business owners with residency in Dubai.
Aaron shares the steps he followed, the hurdles he faced when setting up a company bank account in Dubai both before and after getting his Emirates ID, and offers practical tips to save you time and money. You’ll learn how to open your corporate bank account in Dubai without needing an agent or consultant.
Discover why having a UAE business bank account in Dubai is essential, what documents you need, and the fees involved. Aaron also debunks the myth that you need expensive agents and consultants, providing straightforward advice to guide you through the process.
Start a business in Dubai: https://handlrzone.com/yt
Disclaimer at https://aaronhenriques.com/disclaimer
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
How to set up a bank accountin Dubai is the most frequently
requested video on my channel so far.
And it's really relevant for youif you are a free zone business
owner with residency in Dubai.
So let me read the list of the thingsthat I'm going to share with you today.
It's going to be the steps I took tryingto open up a personal and a corporate
(00:21):
bank account in Dubai before I had myEmirates ID when I was still in London.
Why even after I visited Dubaiand got my Emirates ID, I still
wasn't able to open up a bankaccount when I was back in London.
How I eventually got my corporate andpersonal bank accounts open here in Dubai.
Towards the end, I'm going to share withyou some helpful tips and everything that
(00:42):
you need to have in place to be able toget your business bank account and your
personal bank accounts open here in Dubai.
and of course some importantthings for you to watch out for.
This video is going to be hated byagents and consultants because it
could save you thousands on somethingthat may seem like a complicated
process, but actually it isn't.
(01:03):
So stay tuned.
Now for those of you who don't knowme, very quickly, I'm Aaron Henriques.
I'm from London in the United Kingdom.
I've been starting, failing, trying torun businesses for the last 15 years.
I left a 10 year career as apolice officer in London to go
full time in business in 2017.
And I have companies in London and Dubai.
I previously shared my experiencein setting up a company and going
(01:27):
through the visa process and rightnow I'm here in Dubai for about one
more month before it gets way toohot and I need to go back to London.
I'm sharing my own experiences tohopefully save you a bit of time
and a bit of money along the way.
And just to be clear, I am going tomention a particular bank's name quite
a lot throughout this short video.
However, this is about settingup a bank account in Dubai, and
(01:49):
it just happens to be that's thebank I set up the company with.
This isn't a sponsored video by any means.
I've got no affiliation with them.
So I'm just letting you know that I'monly talking about my own experience
and the process that I've gone through.
And if this video helps you at any point,please like it, leave a comment, get
involved in a conversation about thisand share the video with someone else
(02:12):
who you think that this could help.
But anyway, let's get into this.
this video is gonna be shorterthan most of my videos.
And to be honest, it took me a reallylong time to actually get round
to recording it despite the numberof people who was requesting it.
I didn't think it was gonna addmuch value to many people, and
it's not a complicated process.
But it was requested so muchand I kept saying to people,
(02:33):
look, I'll think about it.
There's obviously a lot ofmisconceptions out there, a lot of fear.
Otherwise you wouldn't be asking for it.
So I've decided to put this together.
it's not going to solve the mysteriesof the universe by any means.
But look, hopefully thisis going to help you.
So first off, let's look at why youeven need a bank account in Dubai.
It seems like a scary and difficultenough process for many of you,
(02:54):
and that's why a lot of you areturning to agencies and consultants,
literally paying them thousands toget help opening up a bank account.
And to be honest, I did try and fail acouple of times before I was successful
actually opening up an account, hadI known the really basic information
that I'm putting in this video today,that wouldn't have been the case.
It would, for me, at least in mycircumstances, it would have been a
(03:16):
very simple, straightforward process.
Quite simply, if you set up acompany here in Dubai, whether it's
a free zone company or a mainlandcompany, you're going to need a
corporate bank account here in Dubai.
It is highly regulated here, and dependingon where you're from, they may operate
very differently from what you're used to.
you can get by personally using aforeign bank card with the likes of
(03:37):
wise or Revolut, similar types of banks.
But if you do want to deal with businessout here, it must be a UAE bank account.
Now the process I'm going to talkto you about is as me, a British
entrepreneur who set up a freezone company in Dubai in 2023,
With IFZA.
And to be quite frank, it might bedifferent for you and your circumstances.
(04:01):
Plus the banks change their rulesand anything else can happen.
Basically I don't want you to comeround to me and leave me a shitty
comment about, oh this process didn'twork for me, but it did work for me.
So I'm only telling you what I did andhopefully it will work for you I'm only
talking about the process I went through.
Cool?
my first attempt at trying toopen up a corporate bank account
(04:21):
in Dubai was when I was still inLondon before I ever visited Dubai.
I heard that it was possible thatyou could set up bank account
in Dubai without even visiting.
Had a look around and HSBC seemedto offer that as a product.
So I applied to HSBC.
Didn't hear anything back.
Then two months later, literallytwo months later, I had them ask
(04:46):
me a question, which I'd alreadyanswered in the initial application.
And I was just like, look, if it'staken you two months to get back to
me about setting up a bank account,I'm just not going to bother.
Goodbye.
So anyway, if you've watched thevisa video, you would have seen that
I then later went to Dubai becauseI needed to get my medical done for
my Emirates ID and stuff like that.
Because I'd used Wise, I wasn't thatbothered about a personal bank account
(05:09):
at that time, particularly after lookingat the fees and stuff involved with all
of the bank accounts, which I'll get backonto at some point later in this video.
But the free zone I set up with,who's called IFZA, they had done
some deal with Mashreq Bank andit was meant to be a pretty simple
process to open up the bank account,
So I started the application processfor the Mashreq NeoBiz bank account.
(05:31):
And I completed all the steps, but theonly thing I couldn't do is that they
wanted proof of where I was living.
And I needed something like an ejari,which is basically a tenancy contract.
And I didn't have one.
I was only staying in, hotel apartments.
So I tried to submit the documentsand it wouldn't let me do it online.
So I thought, at this time, I didn'thave much time left in Dubai after I had
(05:52):
my Emirates ID and stuff given to me.
So I just thought, you know what I'll do,is I will do it when I'm back in London.
And also because I wasn't able toget the ejari and I knew I wasn't
gonna have one for a really longtime if ever, what I decided to do
is I had a look at other banks and Icome across a bank called Wio Bank.
I think they're trying to go forthe same sort of thing as like
(06:13):
Revolut, Monzo, Wise, Starling, thatsort of, challenging the mainstream
old school type banking systems.
So when I tried to apply for Wio whenI was back in London, I hit an issue.
And my issue wasn't actuallyto do with Wio itself.
My issue was to do with my phone number.
Wio requires that you enteryour UAE phone number.
(06:34):
to start the application process.
And it sends an OTP, one time We'reall very familiar with that now, right?
What I wasn't anticipating isthat I wasn't receiving this OTP
and I was confused as to why.
Because it showed that my Virginline was connected still, although
I was in the United Kingdom, itshowed that the line was connected.
(06:54):
So I expected I should beable to receive text messages.
However, when I entered the UAE and setup the Virgin phone sim, they set me
up on the basis that I was entering ona 30 day visa, because that's all you
get as a tourist visa coming from theUnited Kingdom to Dubai is a 30 day visa.
Now, yes, I now had a two year visaas an investor's visa, however,
(07:19):
I didn't update Virgin with that.
And I didn't know that they would cut offyour line once your visa date expired.
So my 30 days had expired, so theysuspended my line, so I still have
my number, but they suspended it.
So then I noticed that Virgin Mobile inthe UAE, On their mobile app, they had a
way for you to upload your Emirates ID.
(07:41):
And I had my Emirates ID, so I was like,great, let me upload my Emirates ID.
No.
It said you can't do that whilstyou're outside of the UAE.
So me being me, I turned on my VPN whilstI was in the United Kingdom, not illegal.
Turned on my VPN whilst inthe United Kingdom and set
it to show that I'm in Dubai.
And it still showed the same thing.
(08:01):
So then I turned off the GPS and thenI realized that actually the Virgin
Mobile app will not allow you to doanything on that app unless you have
the GPS on your phone turned on.
Now, I don't know if there's a way to makethe GPS think you're somewhere else, but
whatever, I'm not that technical on it.
And I wasn't going to go to thoselengths to try and trick the system
(08:23):
into thinking I'm somewhere different.
So I was like crap, I don't have aUAE number, so I'm not going to be
able to open up the bank accountbecause that was the first step
required in the Wio setup process.
what I don't know is that how doI been able to get the one time
passcode from Wio if I still wouldhave been able to complete the
process while outside of the UAE.
So if you are someone who does thatprocess at some point, please leave
(08:46):
something in the comments to let usknow if it actually worked or not for
you to set up Wio outside of the UAE.
So anyway, wasn't able to set up acorporate bank account or a personal
bank account whilst I was in theUnited Kingdom for those reasons.
So I wasn't able to accept paymentsfrom the company, which actually didn't
bother me at all because at that pointI didn't actually have much of a massive
(09:07):
plan with the business, didn't reallyknow what I was going to do with it.
It was more of a knee jerk reactionsetting up, to be honest with you.
for the fact that I was pissed offthat the United Kingdom government just
keep taking like extreme amounts of thepie, let's say, well over 50 percent
of my pie goes to the United Kingdomgovernment in taxes, which I don't like.
So anyway, the next time I visitedDubai a few months later, this visit
(09:31):
was going to be for three months.
So when I landed in Dubaiairport, the first thing I did
is I went to the Virgin kiosk.
I gave them my Emirates ID and I askedthem to update it whilst at the kiosk
center, they sorted that out for me,which then allowed me to keep my number
active for the two years, basically basedon the time of my visa to be in Dubai.
(09:52):
And to be honest, I then actually startedto think, in fact, even before I come back
to Dubai, I was thinking, do I need toactually get an agency, or a consultant to
help me set up my bank account in Dubai?
There must be a reason why
there's so many of them promotingtheir services and, maybe it
is actually a really difficultthing to get the company set up.
But I thought, The main thing that Ifaced last time was in relation to not
(10:17):
being able to get my one time passcode.
So this time I was going toget my one time passcode.
So let's see what would happen next.
So I think it was the next day, orpossibly the day after, I then got
on the Wio app again and I decidedto try the application process.
it was a fairly quick process, andthese are the things that I needed.
I needed my phone, obviously my personaldetails, passport, the Emirates ID,
(10:40):
my trade license documents, and theproof of unit lease for the business.
And all of that, apart fromobviously my personal details,
came with the company setup.
It was approved very quickly, Ithink actually within the same day,
it might have been the day after.
And within a couple of days, they thenasked me to provide a delivery address.
Now, let me just rewind there becausewhen I set up, it didn't give me an option
(11:02):
for where I was staying at that time.
Unlike Mashrek, which I mentioned earlier,it didn't give me an option for that.
It only asked me aboutmy business details.
I put the business office that's shownon the unit lease agreement, which
is a requirement to be able to setup a company in Dubai, but I don't
actually have a physical office there.
It is a real building.
I just don't have a physical office.
(11:23):
It's a registered office,from the United Kingdom people
are more familiar with that.
And I was thinking maybe I'm goingto have to go and plod along to the
IFZA offices Because they're onlygoing to deliver the bank card and
the checkbook to the IFSR offices.
So anyway, when they got in contact andasked me for address, I gave the hotel
address that I was staying at the time.
And lo and behold, theyactually delivered it to there.
(11:44):
just like getting any sort ofrecorded post delivery here,
they ask to see your Emirates IDbefore they sign it over to you.
I repeated the process with the personalbank account, and it was easy and slick
getting it set up with Wio at that time.
But the one thing that didn't dawn onme then, which is obviously dawning
on me now, is that even if I'd set itup abroad, they wouldn't have sent the
(12:05):
bank card and the checkbook abroad.
I would have had to have beenhere to receive it anyway.
So I would suggest it's probablynot the best idea to actually set
it up whilst you're out of the UAE.
Okay, so last few things.
I said it's going to be afairly short video, and it is.
Now, there's a few things thatyou need to be careful of here.
one of my biggest reservationsis that Wio, it is a new bank.
(12:29):
At the time when I set up, Ithink it was about one years old.
I think it's, at the time ofrecording, it's about two and a
half years old, something like that.
as far as I'm aware, There are noguarantees with the banks in the UAE.
Now, I did actually send Wio a messageto ask them, if the bank went under,
is there any guarantees about my money?
What happens with that?
(12:49):
They sent me back some answerwhich basically said no.
They didn't say no, but it was somewishy washy answer which wasn't
just getting to the point of justsaying actually, there isn't.
And I've got a feeling that they don'thave something like we have back in the
United Kingdom where they'll guaranteeup to £85,000 per bank account.
Of course, if you have more thanthat and the bank goes under,
(13:10):
you potentially lose that money.
But here I don't think they have that.
So with Wio as such a new bank, Iwas a bit concerned around that.
So that's a consideration for you to have,particularly if you're going to have large
sums of money in your bank account, youmay want to spread your risk a little
bit, across some other banks as well,particularly more like the mainstream
(13:32):
long established, banks here in the UAE.
Now, just in case you missed it, I'mgoing to go through the list of things
you need to have in place to set up thecorporate bank account here in Dubai.
you need access to a working UAE phonenumber, you need your Emirates ID,
you need your corporation documents,which you would have been sent if
you set up the company with IFZA,
You need proof of your unit leaseagreement, somewhere you are physically
(13:56):
staying so that you can receiveyour bank cards and your checkbook.
And it's exactly the samefor a personal bank account.
So let me get onto a few tips for you.
As I mentioned before,
Before you leave Dubai, you need to updateyour phone line with your Emirates ID.
Otherwise, you run the risk thatyour phone line could be suspended.
(14:16):
That's certainly the waythat Virgin Mobile do it.
I imagine the other networks areprobably operating in the same way.
just be careful, particularly ifyou are receiving calls on that line
business calls, which could be worththousands of, dirhams, dollars, pounds,
whatever you want to call it, to you.
You may end up not being ableto receive any of those calls
because your line is suspended ifyour visitor, visa has expired.
(14:40):
If you've only got a few days left inDubai before you leave and you're trying
to get your corporate bank account openor your personal bank account open, just
remember that you do need to receivethe card and the physical checkbook.
Yes, the actual physical paper thingsthat you write in, literally those.
And there's a reason for that,particularly if you're going
to rent anywhere on a ejari.
(15:02):
They require physical checks.
Strange, I know, but that is howit is done here for some reason.
They're so advanced in every otherway, but that one thing seems to
be the way that it's still done.
So just make sure that you give yourselfmore than a few days, in case there
are any, issues that crop up withyour application, any delays with the
postal service, anything like that.
Give yourself a bit of extratime, do it as soon as you
(15:25):
can before you have to leave.
As I mentioned before, be really carefuland be satisfied in yourself that you're
comfortable with the amount of moneythat you may store in that account.
Now, for me, I may use it moreof a sort of cash flowing thing.
I don't keep large sumsof money in at any point.
I'm not actually doing large sums ofbusiness out here anyway right now.
(15:45):
I still wouldn't be keepinglarge sums of money.
Particularly not just in myWio bank account, I'd probably
look to a more established,state bank, to put my money in.
I will get onto one of the reasons whyyou need to consider not just opening
up tons of bank accounts in Dubai.
And my last real tip here is, and yesit's going to piss off those agents
(16:05):
and consultants who might be chargingliterally thousands to set up a bank
account, but most of you probably do notneed to use an agent or a consultant.
If you wouldn't do it back homewhere you live, where you come from.
to set up a bank account, thenI would urge you, please don't
just do it here, just because.
There's fees for everything, andpeople, for some reason, seem to
(16:28):
think it's a really difficult process.
It certainly wasn't for me, once I knewall the things that I needed to have in
place to be able to open up the account.
99% of people will not need topay an agent or a consultant to
set up a bank account for them.
It is a very short process andprobably not one that's needed.
That comes from someone who has a companyhere in Dubai who has the corporate
(16:51):
service provider activity on their tradelicense who could sell you this as a
service, but I won't, I would refuse.
And I would just say, go andwatch this video and try that.
And if you really can't get it done,then there's probably specialist agents
out there or ask an accountant to helpyou or something like that as part of
the terms of coming on board with them.
now I'm going to get on to the importantthings you need to know There's only a
(17:14):
couple of them and I'm going to wrap upthis video soon one of the annoying things
which if you're from the United Kingdomis something you probably don't experience
as much is Every transaction that you do.
I mean anything at all that you buydoesn't matter if it's $1 or less
you get a text message and it getsreally annoying If you go on your
SMS settings on an iPhone You cansilence your notifications for those.
(17:38):
They're just really annoying.
I don't know why, theydo that, but they do
So finally, the last fewthings that you need to know.
Bank fees.
If you're from the United Kingdom,you probably don't pay bank fees
for either your business or yourpersonal bank accounts, particularly
your personal bank accounts.
I'm not aware of anyone who paysbank fees for their personal bank
account unless they get these addons, where you get free insurance
(18:01):
and all sorts of other stuff with it.
Business bank accounts in theUnited Kingdom, yes, there are some.
Some of the older school bankswill charge, a small fee.
£8-£15 pounds a month.
So the likes of Starling and Monzoand whoever, they don't charge fees.
Certainly not at thetime of recording this.
But in the UAE, the banks that I haveseen, For personal bank accounts,
(18:22):
they will charge a fee unless youget your salary paid directly into
the account over a certain amount permonth, or you hold a certain balance.
It depends on bank to bank.
With Wiobank at the moment, what they'redoing is that they charge a small fee.
I think it's 25 dirhams,which is not much money.
It's about £5 ($7) per month.
If you want to have interest onyour balances, it's 49 dirhams a
(18:44):
month at the moment, which at thistime is 5.5% interest if you have
it in a saving space, whereas WhenI set up the account, it was 6%.
So it's gone down very slightly.
However, compared to the other banks,the interest rates are normally sub 1%.
So less than 1%.
So it has concerned me abit as to why and how Wio.
(19:07):
able to pay 5-6% in interest when allthe other mainstream banks are below 1%.
But anyway, so far they havebeen paying that interest.
And if you have your balances overa certain amount, depending on which
plan you're on, then it will be free.
Now for the business bank account,again, things are different.
So you get a choice of a couple of withWio and with all of them that I've looked
(19:31):
at, the fees range, from 99 dirhams($27) to a couple of hundred dirhams
($55) per month, for your bank account.
And some of them do haveminimum balance requirements.
I think there are some which are thenfree if you have a certain balance,
which the balance is usually quite high.
So what I would say is that Where inthe United Kingdom you could easily
(19:55):
have, three or four business bankaccounts across different banks.
And sometimes people do that one toprotect the money, but also just in case
sometimes banks decide to just freezeyou from being able to do Any transfers,
where they prevent you from being able todo any transfers or something like that.
Which has happened to me as well plentyof times in the United Kingdom, and
I don't do anything odd in there.
(20:16):
It's happened to me witha couple of my banks.
If you have something like that, ifyou're used to that sort of setup,
just be mindful that you could bepaying a few hundred dirhams every
month to be able to just to keepthose bank accounts open, which you
may find it's probably not worth it.
So that's something thatyou need to be aware of.
Don't go into it just quicklygoing through the process and not
(20:37):
really checking about the chargesbecause the charges are there.
And the second thing you need toknow about interest, I've already
mentioned it, which is already,it was the second on my list.
So yeah, you already know.
So that's it.
That is my total experience of setting upa corporate bank account and a personal
bank account here in Dubai with Wio Bank.
(20:57):
It is possible things may be differentfor your personal circumstances.
But once I had the documentsthat I needed, I didn't really
face any obstacles, so yeah.
And that is why I wasn't even sureabout making this video because
it wasn't a complicated process.
It was pretty simple to get throughonce I had all the documents.
But people keep asking, soit's obviously something that
is a concern for many people.
(21:19):
So hopefully this has been helpful.
Hopefully it saves you a bitof money from having to go
with an agent or a consultant.
Sorry agents and consultants, I justfeel like they make a video like this
and just give it out for free to people.
Watch this video next and pleaseremember to like the video, leave a
comment, subscribe, and most importantly,share this video with someone who
(21:39):
you think it could really help.
I'm Aaron Henriques.
Thanks for staying with me.
Bye.
How to set up a bank accountin Dubai is the most frequently
requested video on my channel so far.
And it's really relevant for youif you are a free zone business
owner with residency in Dubai.
So let me read the list of the thingsthat I'm going to share with you today.
It's going to be the steps I took tryingto open up a personal and a corporate
(00:21):
bank account in Dubai before I had myEmirates ID when I was still in London.
Why even after I visited Dubaiand got my Emirates ID, I still
wasn't able to open up a bankaccount when I was back in London.
How I eventually got my corporate andpersonal bank accounts open here in Dubai.
Towards the end, I'm going to share withyou some helpful tips and everything that
(00:42):
you need to have in place to be able toget your business bank account and your
personal bank accounts open here in Dubai.
and of course some importantthings for you to watch out for.
This video is going to be hated byagents and consultants because it
could save you thousands on somethingthat may seem like a complicated
process, but actually it isn't.
(01:03):
So stay tuned.
Now for those of you who don't knowme, very quickly, I'm Aaron Henriques.
I'm from London in the United Kingdom.
I've been starting, failing, trying torun businesses for the last 15 years.
I left a 10 year career as apolice officer in London to go
full time in business in 2017.
And I have companies in London and Dubai.
I previously shared my experiencein setting up a company and going
(01:27):
through the visa process and rightnow I'm here in Dubai for about one
more month before it gets way toohot and I need to go back to London.
I'm sharing my own experiences tohopefully save you a bit of time
and a bit of money along the way.
And just to be clear, I am going tomention a particular bank's name quite
a lot throughout this short video.
However, this is about settingup a bank account in Dubai, and
(01:49):
it just happens to be that's thebank I set up the company with.
This isn't a sponsored video by any means.
I've got no affiliation with them.
So I'm just letting you know that I'monly talking about my own experience
and the process that I've gone through.
And if this video helps you at any point,please like it, leave a comment, get
involved in a conversation about thisand share the video with someone else
(02:12):
who you think that this could help.
But anyway, let's get into this.
this video is gonna be shorterthan most of my videos.
And to be honest, it took me a reallylong time to actually get round
to recording it despite the numberof people who was requesting it.
I didn't think it was gonna addmuch value to many people, and
it's not a complicated process.
But it was requested so muchand I kept saying to people,
(02:33):
look, I'll think about it.
There's obviously a lot ofmisconceptions out there, a lot of fear.
Otherwise you wouldn't be asking for it.
So I've decided to put this together.
it's not going to solve the mysteriesof the universe by any means.
But look, hopefully thisis going to help you.
So first off, let's look at why youeven need a bank account in Dubai.
It seems like a scary and difficultenough process for many of you,
(02:54):
and that's why a lot of you areturning to agencies and consultants,
literally paying them thousands toget help opening up a bank account.
And to be honest, I did try and fail acouple of times before I was successful
actually opening up an account, hadI known the really basic information
that I'm putting in this video today,that wouldn't have been the case.
It would, for me, at least in mycircumstances, it would have been a
(03:16):
very simple, straightforward process.
Quite simply, if you set up acompany here in Dubai, whether it's
a free zone company or a mainlandcompany, you're going to need a
corporate bank account here in Dubai.
It is highly regulated here, and dependingon where you're from, they may operate
very differently from what you're used to.
you can get by personally using aforeign bank card with the likes of
(03:37):
wise or Revolut, similar types of banks.
But if you do want to deal with businessout here, it must be a UAE bank account.
Now the process I'm going to talkto you about is as me, a British
entrepreneur who set up a freezone company in Dubai in 2023,
With IFZA.
And to be quite frank, it might bedifferent for you and your circumstances.
(04:01):
Plus the banks change their rulesand anything else can happen.
Basically I don't want you to comeround to me and leave me a shitty
comment about, oh this process didn'twork for me, but it did work for me.
So I'm only telling you what I did andhopefully it will work for you I'm only
talking about the process I went through.
Cool?
my first attempt at trying toopen up a corporate bank account
(04:21):
in Dubai was when I was still inLondon before I ever visited Dubai.
I heard that it was possible thatyou could set up bank account
in Dubai without even visiting.
Had a look around and HSBC seemedto offer that as a product.
So I applied to HSBC.
Didn't hear anything back.
Then two months later, literallytwo months later, I had them ask
(04:46):
me a question, which I'd alreadyanswered in the initial application.
And I was just like, look, if it'staken you two months to get back to
me about setting up a bank account,I'm just not going to bother.
Goodbye.
So anyway, if you've watched thevisa video, you would have seen that
I then later went to Dubai becauseI needed to get my medical done for
my Emirates ID and stuff like that.
Because I'd used Wise, I wasn't thatbothered about a personal bank account
(05:09):
at that time, particularly after lookingat the fees and stuff involved with all
of the bank accounts, which I'll get backonto at some point later in this video.
But the free zone I set up with,who's called IFZA, they had done
some deal with Mashreq Bank andit was meant to be a pretty simple
process to open up the bank account,
So I started the application processfor the Mashreq NeoBiz bank account.
(05:31):
And I completed all the steps, but theonly thing I couldn't do is that they
wanted proof of where I was living.
And I needed something like an ejari,which is basically a tenancy contract.
And I didn't have one.
I was only staying in, hotel apartments.
So I tried to submit the documentsand it wouldn't let me do it online.
So I thought, at this time, I didn'thave much time left in Dubai after I had
(05:52):
my Emirates ID and stuff given to me.
So I just thought, you know what I'll do,is I will do it when I'm back in London.
And also because I wasn't able toget the ejari and I knew I wasn't
gonna have one for a really longtime if ever, what I decided to do
is I had a look at other banks and Icome across a bank called Wio Bank.
I think they're trying to go forthe same sort of thing as like
(06:13):
Revolut, Monzo, Wise, Starling, thatsort of, challenging the mainstream
old school type banking systems.
So when I tried to apply for Wio whenI was back in London, I hit an issue.
And my issue wasn't actuallyto do with Wio itself.
My issue was to do with my phone number.
Wio requires that you enteryour UAE phone number.
(06:34):
to start the application process.
And it sends an OTP, one time We'reall very familiar with that now, right?
What I wasn't anticipating isthat I wasn't receiving this OTP
and I was confused as to why.
Because it showed that my Virginline was connected still, although
I was in the United Kingdom, itshowed that the line was connected.
(06:54):
So I expected I should beable to receive text messages.
However, when I entered the UAE and setup the Virgin phone sim, they set me
up on the basis that I was entering ona 30 day visa, because that's all you
get as a tourist visa coming from theUnited Kingdom to Dubai is a 30 day visa.
Now, yes, I now had a two year visaas an investor's visa, however,
(07:19):
I didn't update Virgin with that.
And I didn't know that they would cut offyour line once your visa date expired.
So my 30 days had expired, so theysuspended my line, so I still have
my number, but they suspended it.
So then I noticed that Virgin Mobile inthe UAE, On their mobile app, they had a
way for you to upload your Emirates ID.
(07:41):
And I had my Emirates ID, so I was like,great, let me upload my Emirates ID.
No.
It said you can't do that whilstyou're outside of the UAE.
So me being me, I turned on my VPN whilstI was in the United Kingdom, not illegal.
Turned on my VPN whilst inthe United Kingdom and set
it to show that I'm in Dubai.
And it still showed the same thing.
(08:01):
So then I turned off the GPS and thenI realized that actually the Virgin
Mobile app will not allow you to doanything on that app unless you have
the GPS on your phone turned on.
Now, I don't know if there's a way to makethe GPS think you're somewhere else, but
whatever, I'm not that technical on it.
And I wasn't going to go to thoselengths to try and trick the system
(08:23):
into thinking I'm somewhere different.
So I was like crap, I don't have aUAE number, so I'm not going to be
able to open up the bank accountbecause that was the first step
required in the Wio setup process.
what I don't know is that how doI been able to get the one time
passcode from Wio if I still wouldhave been able to complete the
process while outside of the UAE.
So if you are someone who does thatprocess at some point, please leave
(08:46):
something in the comments to let usknow if it actually worked or not for
you to set up Wio outside of the UAE.
So anyway, wasn't able to set up acorporate bank account or a personal
bank account whilst I was in theUnited Kingdom for those reasons.
So I wasn't able to accept paymentsfrom the company, which actually didn't
bother me at all because at that pointI didn't actually have much of a massive
(09:07):
plan with the business, didn't reallyknow what I was going to do with it.
It was more of a knee jerk reactionsetting up, to be honest with you.
for the fact that I was pissed offthat the United Kingdom government just
keep taking like extreme amounts of thepie, let's say, well over 50 percent
of my pie goes to the United Kingdomgovernment in taxes, which I don't like.
So anyway, the next time I visitedDubai a few months later, this visit
(09:31):
was going to be for three months.
So when I landed in Dubaiairport, the first thing I did
is I went to the Virgin kiosk.
I gave them my Emirates ID and I askedthem to update it whilst at the kiosk
center, they sorted that out for me,which then allowed me to keep my number
active for the two years, basically basedon the time of my visa to be in Dubai.
(09:52):
And to be honest, I then actually startedto think, in fact, even before I come back
to Dubai, I was thinking, do I need toactually get an agency, or a consultant to
help me set up my bank account in Dubai?
There must be a reason why
there's so many of them promotingtheir services and, maybe it
is actually a really difficultthing to get the company set up.
But I thought, The main thing that Ifaced last time was in relation to not
(10:17):
being able to get my one time passcode.
So this time I was going toget my one time passcode.
So let's see what would happen next.
So I think it was the next day, orpossibly the day after, I then got
on the Wio app again and I decidedto try the application process.
it was a fairly quick process, andthese are the things that I needed.
I needed my phone, obviously my personaldetails, passport, the Emirates ID,
(10:40):
my trade license documents, and theproof of unit lease for the business.
And all of that, apart fromobviously my personal details,
came with the company setup.
It was approved very quickly, Ithink actually within the same day,
it might have been the day after.
And within a couple of days, they thenasked me to provide a delivery address.
Now, let me just rewind there becausewhen I set up, it didn't give me an option
(11:02):
for where I was staying at that time.
Unlike Mashrek, which I mentioned earlier,it didn't give me an option for that.
It only asked me aboutmy business details.
I put the business office that's shownon the unit lease agreement, which
is a requirement to be able to setup a company in Dubai, but I don't
actually have a physical office there.
It is a real building.
I just don't have a physical office.
(11:23):
It's a registered office,from the United Kingdom people
are more familiar with that.
And I was thinking maybe I'm goingto have to go and plod along to the
IFZA offices Because they're onlygoing to deliver the bank card and
the checkbook to the IFSR offices.
So anyway, when they got in contact andasked me for address, I gave the hotel
address that I was staying at the time.
And lo and behold, theyactually delivered it to there.
(11:44):
just like getting any sort ofrecorded post delivery here,
they ask to see your Emirates IDbefore they sign it over to you.
I repeated the process with the personalbank account, and it was easy and slick
getting it set up with Wio at that time.
But the one thing that didn't dawn onme then, which is obviously dawning
on me now, is that even if I'd set itup abroad, they wouldn't have sent the
(12:05):
bank card and the checkbook abroad.
I would have had to have beenhere to receive it anyway.
So I would suggest it's probablynot the best idea to actually set
it up whilst you're out of the UAE.
Okay, so last few things.
I said it's going to be afairly short video, and it is.
Now, there's a few things thatyou need to be careful of here.
one of my biggest reservationsis that Wio, it is a new bank.
(12:29):
At the time when I set up, Ithink it was about one years old.
I think it's, at the time ofrecording, it's about two and a
half years old, something like that.
as far as I'm aware, There are noguarantees with the banks in the UAE.
Now, I did actually send Wio a messageto ask them, if the bank went under,
is there any guarantees about my money?
What happens with that?
(12:49):
They sent me back some answerwhich basically said no.
They didn't say no, but it was somewishy washy answer which wasn't
just getting to the point of justsaying actually, there isn't.
And I've got a feeling that they don'thave something like we have back in the
United Kingdom where they'll guaranteeup to £85,000 per bank account.
Of course, if you have more thanthat and the bank goes under,
(13:10):
you potentially lose that money.
But here I don't think they have that.
So with Wio as such a new bank, Iwas a bit concerned around that.
So that's a consideration for you to have,particularly if you're going to have large
sums of money in your bank account, youmay want to spread your risk a little
bit, across some other banks as well,particularly more like the mainstream
(13:32):
long established, banks here in the UAE.
Now, just in case you missed it, I'mgoing to go through the list of things
you need to have in place to set up thecorporate bank account here in Dubai.
you need access to a working UAE phonenumber, you need your Emirates ID,
you need your corporation documents,which you would have been sent if
you set up the company with IFZA,
You need proof of your unit leaseagreement, somewhere you are physically
(13:56):
staying so that you can receiveyour bank cards and your checkbook.
And it's exactly the samefor a personal bank account.
So let me get onto a few tips for you.
As I mentioned before,
Before you leave Dubai, you need to updateyour phone line with your Emirates ID.
Otherwise, you run the risk thatyour phone line could be suspended.
(14:16):
That's certainly the waythat Virgin Mobile do it.
I imagine the other networks areprobably operating in the same way.
just be careful, particularly ifyou are receiving calls on that line
business calls, which could be worththousands of, dirhams, dollars, pounds,
whatever you want to call it, to you.
You may end up not being ableto receive any of those calls
because your line is suspended ifyour visitor, visa has expired.
(14:40):
If you've only got a few days left inDubai before you leave and you're trying
to get your corporate bank account openor your personal bank account open, just
remember that you do need to receivethe card and the physical checkbook.
Yes, the actual physical paper thingsthat you write in, literally those.
And there's a reason for that,particularly if you're going
to rent anywhere on a ejari.
(15:02):
They require physical checks.
Strange, I know, but that is howit is done here for some reason.
They're so advanced in every otherway, but that one thing seems to
be the way that it's still done.
So just make sure that you give yourselfmore than a few days, in case there
are any, issues that crop up withyour application, any delays with the
postal service, anything like that.
Give yourself a bit of extratime, do it as soon as you
(15:25):
can before you have to leave.
As I mentioned before, be really carefuland be satisfied in yourself that you're
comfortable with the amount of moneythat you may store in that account.
Now, for me, I may use it moreof a sort of cash flowing thing.
I don't keep large sumsof money in at any point.
I'm not actually doing large sums ofbusiness out here anyway right now.
(15:45):
I still wouldn't be keepinglarge sums of money.
Particularly not just in myWio bank account, I'd probably
look to a more established,state bank, to put my money in.
I will get onto one of the reasons whyyou need to consider not just opening
up tons of bank accounts in Dubai.
And my last real tip here is, and yesit's going to piss off those agents
(16:05):
and consultants who might be chargingliterally thousands to set up a bank
account, but most of you probably do notneed to use an agent or a consultant.
If you wouldn't do it back homewhere you live, where you come from.
to set up a bank account, thenI would urge you, please don't
just do it here, just because.
There's fees for everything, andpeople, for some reason, seem to
(16:28):
think it's a really difficult process.
It certainly wasn't for me, once I knewall the things that I needed to have in
place to be able to open up the account.
99% of people will not need topay an agent or a consultant to
set up a bank account for them.
It is a very short process andprobably not one that's needed.
That comes from someone who has a companyhere in Dubai who has the corporate
(16:51):
service provider activity on their tradelicense who could sell you this as a
service, but I won't, I would refuse.
And I would just say, go andwatch this video and try that.
And if you really can't get it done,then there's probably specialist agents
out there or ask an accountant to helpyou or something like that as part of
the terms of coming on board with them.
now I'm going to get on to the importantthings you need to know There's only a
(17:14):
couple of them and I'm going to wrap upthis video soon one of the annoying things
which if you're from the United Kingdomis something you probably don't experience
as much is Every transaction that you do.
I mean anything at all that you buydoesn't matter if it's $1 or less
you get a text message and it getsreally annoying If you go on your
SMS settings on an iPhone You cansilence your notifications for those.
(17:38):
They're just really annoying.
I don't know why, theydo that, but they do
So finally, the last fewthings that you need to know.
Bank fees.
If you're from the United Kingdom,you probably don't pay bank fees
for either your business or yourpersonal bank accounts, particularly
your personal bank accounts.
I'm not aware of anyone who paysbank fees for their personal bank
account unless they get these addons, where you get free insurance
(18:01):
and all sorts of other stuff with it.
Business bank accounts in theUnited Kingdom, yes, there are some.
Some of the older school bankswill charge, a small fee.
£8-£15 pounds a month.
So the likes of Starling and Monzoand whoever, they don't charge fees.
Certainly not at thetime of recording this.
But in the UAE, the banks that I haveseen, For personal bank accounts,
(18:22):
they will charge a fee unless youget your salary paid directly into
the account over a certain amount permonth, or you hold a certain balance.
It depends on bank to bank.
With Wiobank at the moment, what they'redoing is that they charge a small fee.
I think it's 25 dirhams,which is not much money.
It's about £5 ($7) per month.
If you want to have interest onyour balances, it's 49 dirhams a
(18:44):
month at the moment, which at thistime is 5.5% interest if you have
it in a saving space, whereas WhenI set up the account, it was 6%.
So it's gone down very slightly.
However, compared to the other banks,the interest rates are normally sub 1%.
So less than 1%.
So it has concerned me abit as to why and how Wio.
(19:07):
able to pay 5-6% in interest when allthe other mainstream banks are below 1%.
But anyway, so far they havebeen paying that interest.
And if you have your balances overa certain amount, depending on which
plan you're on, then it will be free.
Now for the business bank account,again, things are different.
So you get a choice of a couple of withWio and with all of them that I've looked
(19:31):
at, the fees range, from 99 dirhams($27) to a couple of hundred dirhams
($55) per month, for your bank account.
And some of them do haveminimum balance requirements.
I think there are some which are thenfree if you have a certain balance,
which the balance is usually quite high.
So what I would say is that Where inthe United Kingdom you could easily
(19:55):
have, three or four business bankaccounts across different banks.
And sometimes people do that one toprotect the money, but also just in case
sometimes banks decide to just freezeyou from being able to do Any transfers,
where they prevent you from being able todo any transfers or something like that.
Which has happened to me as well plentyof times in the United Kingdom, and
I don't do anything odd in there.
(20:16):
It's happened to me witha couple of my banks.
If you have something like that, ifyou're used to that sort of setup,
just be mindful that you could bepaying a few hundred dirhams every
month to be able to just to keepthose bank accounts open, which you
may find it's probably not worth it.
So that's something thatyou need to be aware of.
Don't go into it just quicklygoing through the process and not
(20:37):
really checking about the chargesbecause the charges are there.
And the second thing you need toknow about interest, I've already
mentioned it, which is already,it was the second on my list.
So yeah, you already know.
So that's it.
That is my total experience of setting upa corporate bank account and a personal
bank account here in Dubai with Wio Bank.
(20:57):
It is possible things may be differentfor your personal circumstances.
But once I had the documentsthat I needed, I didn't really
face any obstacles, so yeah.
And that is why I wasn't even sureabout making this video because
it wasn't a complicated process.
It was pretty simple to get throughonce I had all the documents.
But people keep asking, soit's obviously something that
is a concern for many people.
(21:19):
So hopefully this has been helpful.
Hopefully it saves you a bitof money from having to go
with an agent or a consultant.
Sorry agents and consultants, I justfeel like they make a video like this
and just give it out for free to people.
Watch this video next and pleaseremember to like the video, leave a
comment, subscribe, and most importantly,share this video with someone who
(21:39):
you think it could really help.
I'm Aaron Henriques.
Thanks for staying with me.
Bye.
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