C3 Card, a leader in electronic payroll solutions industry, said it was all set to operate Payroll in the UAE electronically and in full compliance with the Wages Protection System (WPS).

C3 Payroll card enables employees to receive their salaries through instant electronic transfer, in accordance with Ministry of Labour legislation which came into effect in January 2008.

The WPS will encompass some 4.1 million workers in the UAE, said a statement from Dubai-based C3 Card.

It was officially launched during the joint press conference held in Abu Dhabi by the minister of labour Saqr bin Ghobash Saeed Ghobash and the Central Bank governor Sultan Bin Nasser Al Suwaidi.

'The hard work of the technical teams of the Minister of Labour and the Central Bank over last twelve months has given birth to one of the most sophisticated systems in the world, a one-of-a-kind initiative as far as we know,' said Mohamed Belarj, chief executive officer of C3 Card.

The C3 Card, in partnership with leading banks such as Commercial Bank International and HSBC, has been quick to support WPS initiative early in the game and is now fully compliant.

C3 Card is now supporting some 100,000 employees and has the capacity to take on large and small businesses and support the corporations in their endeavour to take care of their employees.

“C3 Card systems operate in a fully secure end-to-end process, starting at the Corporation level, through C3 Card secure Portal System, to the Central Bank and the Ministry of Labour”, he explained.

'WPS compliance is a hygiene factor and every service provider, bank and exchange house will need to be compliant,' Belarj noted.

Where C3 Card has a lead is, in staying ahead of the game providing our customers with the confidence of PCI DSS compliance, data security and privacy and proper business continuity planning”, he pointed out.

“We should not forget we are dealing with salaries involving both money and sensitive data from the corporations perspective” he added.

C3 Card takes care of specific cases such as off-site employees, remote locations, multiple salary distributions (bi-weekly, weekly), mass employee transfer to other cities in the UAE or abroad, he said.

C3 Card is not a bank but supports its partner banks in providing viable solutions to this segment that cannot be ignored. The traditional channels –branches, ATMs and Call Centers have been designed by the banks for their select customers.

According to Belarj, the C3 Card adds in channels dedicated to supporting the workforce.

'It is a win/win deal, the banks enjoy the corporate relationship, the cross-selling and the float, while C3 Card processes the transactions and provides services to the Corporations and their workers,' he added.-TradeArabia News Service