Wall Street Exchange Centre said it has signed an agreement with National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) to issue the bank's Ratibi cards to clients to enable payments of wages in line with Ministry of Labour Wages Protection System guidelines.

A member of Emirates Post Group Holding, Wall Street Exchange Centre said the Ratibi card offers employers an efficient means to pay their workers, who in turn would access the funds through their Ratibi card.

The programme incorporates into the banking system a segment of the population who otherwise would not have access to any banking services. Ratibi cardholders can use the card at all Visa-enabled ATMs and merchants throughout the world, it added.

“This agreement is a very important step in our new strategy to diversify the offerings at our branches,” said Sultan Bin Kharsham, managing director of Wall Street Exchange Center.

“Customers will now be able to access their salaries through 24 branches of (Wall Street) and more than 450 ATMs of NBAD all over the UAE without the need to have a bank account. We are delighted to collaborate with the NBAD to launch this excellent service,” he noted.

NBAD’s Ratibi is 100 per cent compliant with the UAE Government’s Wages Protection System (WPS) guidelines, which seeks to protect employees by providing the Government a mechanism to track salary payments.

Joining hands with Wall Street Exchange will encourage many companies to join the system, and we expect to issue tens of thousands of new cards in the first year of this new partnership,” said Saif Al Shehhi, the senior general manager of domestic banking division at NBAD.
 
"NBAD Ratibi is designed to replace salary payments of cheques and cash. It is a multifunctional card that has no minimum balance or annual fees, but serves as a virtual bank account," Al Shehhi explained.

Today, NBAD has over 450,000 Ratibi cardholders employed with over 2,800 companies in UAE, he added.

Ratibi, he said, gives the cardholder the flexibility of making cash withdrawals and access to a variety of electronic banking solutions including cash withdrawals through ATMs worldwide, and point-of-sale transactions for purchases at millions of merchants across the globe.

The cards can also be used for the NBAD Arrow service to remit money back to their loved ones in their home countries, he pointed out.

“Wall Street Exchange is one of the first financial institutions in the region to launch this service and since Wall Street has strong brand & reputation, it will act as a platform to handle businesses of SMEs to large corporations more efficiently,” said Sultan Al Mahmoud, group marketing director, Wall Street Exchange.

The agreement is part of Wallstreet’s expansion plans and NBAD’s strategy to strengthen and expand its Ratibi payroll card services.

“We have invested significant capital into building our Ratibi system because NBAD believes that electronic and card payments have great opportunities in the future," said Ahmed Al Naqbi, the head of Direct Banking & E Development at NBAD.-TradeArabia News Service