Noor Islamic Bank, a leading bank in Dubai, has signed an agreement with C3 Card, a payroll service provider company to launch an innovative card based salary payment scheme.

With this, the corporate customers of Noor Islamic Bank can now benefit from a new enhanced card based salary payment scheme, which will help boost security and make payroll delivery more efficient for both employers and employees, said a statement from the bank.

The solution is fully compliant with the Wage Protection System (WPS), which was launched in 2009 by the UAE Ministry of Labour and the UAE Central Bank.

Under the agreement, Noor Islamic’s corporate clients will be able to provide their staff who do not have bank accounts with prepaid salary ATM cards, reducing the need to pay salaries in cash.

Employees can use the cards to access their salary from over 4,000 ATMs in the UAE and over 22 million ATMs worldwide. The card can also be used at over 20,000 merchant locations in the UAE, said a top official.

Aamer Zaidi, head of Corporate Banking, Noor Islamic Bank, said: "The payroll agreement with C3 Cards is a response to the growing demand from our corporate clients for a secure, convenient and efficient way to pay staff salaries."

"It is yet another example of how we are reshaping the face of banking in the UAE by providing end-to-end account services that meet the different needs of both employers and employees," he noted.

Rabih Sfeir, director of C3 Card, said: "We value our partnership with Noor Islamic Bank as it will maintain our leading position as the perfect partner not only for our valued customers, but also for the registered banks, exchange houses and the service providers."

"We foresee many new opportunities for the prepaid card usage beyond the current payroll solution and look forward to a successful working relationship with Noor Islamic Bank," he added.

Noor Islamic Bank’s WPS payroll solution enhances its global transaction services suite of corporate offerings, said Zaidi.

It is the latest in a series of successfully implemented cash management and trade solutions that are fully Sharia’a-compliant and which add value across the entire working capital cycle of corporations operating in multiple sectors, he added.-TradeArabia News Service