A new website offering consumers comprehensive advice on financial products has launched in the UAE.
Souqalmal.com, which went live last month, is the nation's first independent financial comparison website, allowing visitors to search and compare credit cards, as well as personal, home and car-finance products offered by UAE banks.
Launched by a small group of UAE entrepreneurs, the site aims to be the region's leading information website for financial products, following in the footsteps of successful ventures in the West, such as moneysupermarket.com.
"We founded souqalmal.com to give consumers an easy way to search and compare the products in the market on one independent website," a souqalmal.com spokesperson says. "In the end, we want to be the site every consumer visits to do their homework on financial products and share their findings with others."
Besides comparing product details, visitors to the site can also rate and review the products they use and see which products have been recommended by other users and why.
For more information, visit www.souqalmal.com.
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Ajman Bank has launched a new loyalty programme that rewards credit-card customers with fuel coupons that can be redeemed at petrol stations nationwide.
Available on classic, premium and platinum credit cards, the Roadmiles loyalty programme is the first in the UAE where points can be redeemed for fuel.
Cardholders earn one "Roadmile" for every dirham spent on their card and accumulated points can then be exchanged for fuel coupons.
"The Roadmiles range gives customers more flexibility in managing their finances, while rewarding their loyalty in a new and innovative way," says Asad Batla, the group head of retail banking at Ajman Bank. "With more than two-and-a-half-million cars on the UAE's roads, the potential for this programme is enormous."
For further details, visit www.ajmanbank.ae.
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Emirates NBD (ENBD) and its subsidiary, Network International, have equipped all ENBD ATM machines with the Dynamic Currency Converter (DCC) - a special service that automatically calculates the rate of exchange for foreign credit cards.
The new feature will allow cardholders to see exactly how much they have withdrawn on their foreign cards by converting the dirham amount into their native billing currency - a process that takes place immediately rather than at the end of the billing cycle.
"This service will be of particular significance to the millions who visit the UAE each year and do not wish to carry large amounts of cash, but would still like to be aware of their spending in their home currency," says Ram Chari, the chief executive of Network International.
The DCC service is being offered to MasterCard cardholders and will support dynamic currency conversion for the euro, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar, British pound and the dollar.