Al Etihad Credit Bureau, the nation’s debt quality watchdog, has started to allow banks to dir­ectly access information about those seeking credit using their Emirates ID cards.

The fledgling bureau’s move comes as UAE banks are increasingly going digital to lessen unnecessary travel and bur­eaucracy for customers who have become used to managing their lives with their smartphones.

“It is important to be at the forefront of digital integration,” said Marwan Lutfi, the bureau’s chief executive.

“Banks, finance companies and telecom operators can now design internal decision-making systems that instantly read information from Al Etihad Credit Bureau and use it for customising products, offers, services and rates while customers are being serviced.”

The bureau said that through so-called application-to-application protocol, banks can now seamlessly access a customer’s credit history instantaneously using his or her Emirates ID. Mashreq, the Dubai-based lender, is the first bank to sign up to the protocol. With the use of the chip on the Emirates ID, a consumer’s credit history will be instantly accessed by a bank.

“This automated feature will allow us to service our customers better since processing loan applications will be seamless, error-free and, most significantly, enable faster turnaround,” said Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair, the bank’s chief executive. “Overall, this will also help improve productivity and efficiency by enabling straight-through processing.”

For banks, going digital is not just about keeping customers happy, but also lowering costs as the more things clients can do electronically, the fewer people the bank needs to hire.

mkassem@thenational.ae

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