General and Legal News from the UAE – July 2022 № 1

As Dubai is strengthening its digital economy in order to become a paperless city, the real estate sector bene­fits from the focus on digitalization. By replacing rent cheques with online payments, landlords and property managers will benefit as well as tenants who will enjoy more flexible payment options. 

 

This move has been announced by the Dubai Land Department (DLD) which has announced a partnership with Emirates NBD to replace the current rent cheque payment system with online payments. Under this system tenants will be able to pay their rent payments via an online banking channel using the UAE’s Central Bank Direct Debit System (UAEDDS) thus have more flexible payment options.

 

Director General of DLD, Sultan Butti bin Mejren stated: “The real estate industry in the UAE is one of the best and most competitive in the world, and as part of our mission to present a regulatory environment in service of tenants and property owners, we have partnered with Emirates NBD in line with our efforts to fully digitalize our services as per the Dubai Paperless Strategy. Such collaborations will help facilitate and streamline the process involved in the property market by employing progressive machinations on the path towards replacing the legacy systems in place.”

   

Meanwhile, Emirates NDB has announced that foreign investors looking into buying property in Dubai will be able to open a non-resident savings account for this purpose (amongst others going forward). A dedicated relationship management team will be of service for oversea investors.

 

A date for the transferal from paper cheques to online payments has not yet been announced.

 

In order to improve its market share and grab a larger share in FinTech services Careem rapidly keeps expan­ding its services as well as its geographic footprint. The company has on offer several services including ride-hailing, food and grocery delivery and payments. In corporation with partner companies, it even offers car rentals, home cleaning as well as PCR testing to its UAE customers.

 

The acquisition of the UAE subscription-based food delivery company Munch:On is the most recent part of Careem’s expanding strategy. Teams from Careem and Munch:On will work jointly as the Munch:On Services will internally be stopped in order to be incorporated into the Careem app. 

 

Co-founder and Chief Executive of Careem Mudassir Sheikha said that “the Munch:On team have built a com­petitive food offering driven by a clear vision to make food more accessible and affordable. The food offer on Careem app today serves millions of customers across the Middle East and is growing rapidly. By acquiring Munch:On, Careem Food will be able to build an even more competitive offering with much richer variety of benefits for customers and restaurant partners.” 

 

Jointly the teams will furthermore work on introducing low-cost meal segments which is Munch:On’s pioneer success. Furthermore, food discovery and delivery options for the corporate sector will be explored and intro­duced. Munch:On has delivered millions of meals to customers at 20,000 companies UAE wide. The value of the deal has not been disclosed.

 

Careem became the most valuable Middle Eastern start-up with a value of more than $1 billion when Uber had bought it back in 2019 for $3.1 billion.

From 2023 onwards citizens of GCC countries will no longer require a visa to the UK. Currently GCC nationals are required to obtain a so-called electronic visa waiver. This system will be replaced by the UK’s new Elec­tro­nic Travel Authorization (ETA) scheme.

 

The UAE ambassador to the UK, Mansoor Abulhoul said that the Emirates will be one of the first countries to enjoy this facility under the new ETA scheme. With this update, existing visa restrictions will be removed for all citizens of all six GCC member states. Further and more detailed information on this process will be announced shortly.