Day: October 12, 2021

ABU DHABI, The Abu Dhabi Labour Court, in cooperation with the Labour Crisis Management Committee, has successfully settled a collective dispute involving 84 workers of a company and rewarded them AED5,175,818, after the Mobile Court relocated to the workers’ accommodation while ensuring all preventive measures against COVID-19.

The Abu Dhabi Labour Court emphasised its commitment to settle the dispute in record time by facilitating and expediting the registration of the claims, hearing the cases and delivering judgments with the entitlements of each worker separately with expedited enforcement. The court also ordered that the workers not be shifted from their place of residence. Their evacuation was also rejected until they received their entire entitlements and necessary steps were taken to transfer the residences of workers wishing to work for other companies.

The court also underlined the concern of the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department (ADJD) for the prompt settlement of labour cases, especially collective disputes, and for securing the payment of workers’ dues under the directives of H.H. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Presidential Affairs and Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department, to speed up the settlement of cases and shorten the period of litigation, to achieve the Judicial Department’s main objective of ensuring fairness and justice.

The labour court explained that the mechanism adopted to deal with these disputes, in coordination with the competent agencies, enables all parties to obtain their rights as guaranteed by law, as part of the UAE’s commitment to safeguarding workers’ rights and provide them with the necessary protection under the rule of law, through an advanced judicial system.

The labour court also appreciated the integration of efforts between the relevant authorities and the provision of services to workers in meeting their living requirements during the transitional phase towards the final settlement of their situation, and the efforts of the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation to address the conditions of workers wishing to change companies.

Source: Emirates News Agency

ABU DHABI, The Telecommunications and Digital Government Regulatory Authority (TDRA) has announced that more than 1.7 million mobile phone numbers have been transferred between licensees since the launch of the service back in 2013, while the number of porting requests from the beginning of this year until the end of late August reached nearly 200,000.

This turnout reflects TDRA’s success in delivering services and initiatives that contribute to raising customer satisfaction and happiness.

TDRA pointed out that it has during late August, and in cooperation with licensees, developed systems and automated procedures, thereby optimising the approval time for individuals’ requests to port numbers to become less than an hour for most of these requests (down from the previous approval time of 7 working hours).

Commenting on this service, Saif bin Ghelaita, Executive Director of TDRA’s Technology Development Affairs Department, said, “At TDRA, we are keen to develop our services and improve performance in a way that achieves customer happiness, which is the ultimate goal we seek to achieve. Through this service, we have given customers the opportunity to switch between operators and try their offerings while keeping the same telephone numbers, which are now an important part of our identity.”

TDRA confirmed that it is making continuous efforts to follow up on the commitment of service providers to deliver a high quality and efficient service to customers. Furthermore, TDRA periodically performs extensive application reviewing, and seeks to address any challenges that may arise – all in order to provide a best quality service and achieve customer happiness.

According to TDRA, the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) service between service providers, i.e. Emirates Telecommunications Corporation (Etisalat) and Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (du), applies to all mobile phone numbers starting with (050, 055, 052, 054, 058, and 056), where they can be ported from one operator to another, noting that the service allows customers to make the switch to their favorite service provider, with the possibility of reverting to the previous one in 3 working days’ time (if services of the new service provider do not meet the subscriber’s needs) or within a month following the porting of the number to the other service provider.

Source: Emirates News Agency

ABU DHABI, Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the international financial centre in Abu Dhabi, has announced a stellar global line-up of speakers for the fifth edition of its flagship initiative, the Fintech Abu Dhabi Festival, held under the patronage of H.H. Sheikh Hazza bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Chairman of Abu Dhabi Executive Council.

The Festival will take place from 22th to 24th November 2021, and will be presented in a hybrid format. Delegates of the region’s largest fintech event will see keynote addresses, panel debates and fireside chats led by over 120 industry titans, focusing on themes such as sustainability and the dramatic shift to digital financial services accelerated by the pandemic.

Confirmed senior financial sector leaders set to speak in the two-day agenda include, amongst many others.

The 2021 agenda will see leaders of global financial industry descend on Abu Dhabi, including the CEOs of major banks and financial institutions, founders of nine fintech unicorns, world’s top investors, policy-makers and more.

2021 talk titles include ‘Resilience in the Face of Crisis’, ‘The Great Hybrid Work Experiment’, ‘The Importance of Storytelling in Innovation’, ‘Why Engineers are the New Bankers’, ‘How to Build a Bank’, ‘Tokens & the New Money’, ‘Secrets of Launching a Fintech Venture’ and ‘the Future of the Digital High Street’.

The Fintech Abu Dhabi Festival will also host 150 global investors from top funds like Seqouia, Antler, Techstars, Grayscale and Mubadala, and over 100 of the world’s top fintech startups at the prestigious ‘Fintech100’, including nine global unicorn founders and CEOs, from billion dollar valued fintech startups such as Stripe, Judo, Fawry, Flutterwave, Zeta, Zip, WeLab, Bux and Noon.

Confirmed partners and sponsors for the Festival include Mubadala, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Etihad, Ma’an, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Stripe, Plug & Play, Mashreq Bank, Arab Monetary Fund, Government of Malta, ADGM Academy, DLA Piper, Hub71, Mubadala Health, Oracle and Securrency.

Emmanuel Givanakis, CEO of the ADGM Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA), said, “The Fintech landscape is brimming with up-and-coming talent and cutting-edge innovative solutions that are positively changing the face of financial services. Our sincerest thanks to our generous sponsors and partners for their support of the Festival. We look forward to welcoming this stellar speaker list of unicorn founders, industry leaders, regulators, academia, and fintechs as they engage and contribute to a successful exchange of knowledge and expertise on the future of the sector.”

This year’s festival will grow to 14 different features and events, including new additions such as CxO21 – a digital transformation summit, Token – a digital assets forum, and Fintech Souk – a forum on cutting edge developments in retail and payments. The festival will also feature recurring agenda items from previous editions, including the Investor Forum, Innovation Challenge, Government Fintech Forum, the Fintech100, the Fintech Abu Dhabi Awards and more.

Source: Emirates News Agency

ABU DHABI, The Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (CBUAE) said today that total bank deposits increased by 0.7%, rising from AED 1,915.1 billion at the end of July 2021 to AED 1,928.7 billion at the end of August 2021.

In a statement today, the apex bank attributed the rise in total bank deposits to a 0.6% increase in resident deposits and 1.5% increase in non-resident Deposits. Resident Deposits rose due to 4.6% rise in government-related entities (GRE) deposits and 0.6% rise in private sector deposits, superseding reductions in government sector deposits and non-banking financial institutions deposits by 1.0% and 12.1%, respectively.

In the meantime, the bank announced that the Money Supply aggregate M1 increased by 1.1%, from AED 653.9 billion at the end of July 2021 to AED 661.1 billion at the end of August 2021.

“The money supply aggregate M2 increased by 0.7%, from AED 1,477.9 billion at the end of July 2021 to AED 1,487.8 billion at the end of August 2021. The Money Supply aggregate M3 also increased by 0.3%, from AED 1,775.0 billion at the end of July 2021 to AED1,780.7 billion at the end of August 2021.”

The rise in M1 was due to an AED9.7 billion increase in Monetary Deposits, overriding AED 2.5 billion reduction in currency in circulation outside banks. M2 increased due to an increased M1 and an AED 2.7 billion rise in Quasi-Monetary Deposits. M3 rose due to increases in M1 and M2, overshadowing AED 4.2 billion drop in government deposits.

The Monetary Base expanded by 1.8 % rising from AED 436.9 billion at the end of July 2021 to AED 444.7 billion at the end of August 2021, added the statement. “The main driving force behind this expansion in the Monetary Base was 68.5% increase in Banks & OFCs’ current accounts & overnight deposits of banks at CBUAE, overshadowing the fall in Currency Issued by 2.6%, in Reserve Account by 16.2% and in certificates of deposit & monetary bills by 1.5%.”

Gross banks’ assets, including bankers’ acceptances, decreased by 0.2%, declining from AED 3,233.4 billion at the end of July 2021 to AED 3,228.5 billion at the end of August 2021, according to the bank’s figures.

“Gross credit increased by 0.2% climbing from AED 1,768.6 billion at the end of July 2021 to AED 1,771.4 billion at the end of August 2021.” It attributed the gross credit increase to a 0.3% rise in domestic credit, overshadowing the 0.8% fall in foreign credit. The rise in domestic credit was mainly due to 0.6%, 0.3% and an 4.5% increase in credit to the government sector, private sector and non-banking financial institutions respectively, despite the reduction in credit to public sector (GRE) by 0.3%.

Source: Emirates News Agency