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Best UAE banks for receiving USD and other currencies?

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YSB

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Feb 7, 2020
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#1
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I have a LLC in Shams freezone in the UAE. One of my clients based in the US will be sending a monthly USD amount my UAE bank.

I'd like to know which UAE bank has a simple account opening process and doesn't charge a crazy conversion fees from USD to AED?

Also is it worth opening a USD currency account if the money will be withdrawn within the UAE? I assume there is no way to withdraw actual dollars here.
 
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#2
#5
YSB said:
From what I understand ENBD is the hardest to open an account with and they have minimum balance requirement of AED 200,000. Is that correct
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YSB said:
From what I understand ENBD is the hardest to open an account with and they have minimum balance requirement of AED 200,000. Is that correct?
Click to expand...
It's not correct. You can easly open account in UAE. With UAE ID, You have a full set of service and without ID basics access to account.
 
#10
Opening a business account in UAE is difficult and can take from couple of months up to half a year.
(and they can decline the opening without giving a reason)

USD<>AED exchange rates are not that of an issue as the USD/AED rate is fixed so you can expect to loose about 0.2% to 0.5%.
For all other currencies like EUR the spreads are much bigger and you can expect to lose even 5% on an exchange.

If you exchange larger amounts you can also contact your RM and get a slightly better rate.

It is possible to withdraw foreign currency (USD/EUR) but not all banks allow that and not all branches have the cash.
This information is sometimes hard to find out and you'll get conflicting information from the staff but once you figure out what branches you can do it - then it's super simple.

Basically, AED = USD and the exchange spread is super tight, so no reasons to worry about it.
Your worries are: opening bank account or if you deal with other currencies like EUR, GBP, CHF...
 
#12
I think that the fee for Mashreq is 1% + vat making it a total of 1.05%

But I thought that the question was not dealing with cash - than with receiving funds to bank account and exchanging them...
Also, if's probably cheaper to exchange USD to AED and to withdraw AED if you plan on spending it in UAE.
If you want to take it abroad than you can exchange AED back to UAE at exchange office.

With EUR things are different and it's much better to withdraw the EUR, pay the withdrawal fee...
 
#14
TheCryptoAnt said:
Maybe @Fred can help here somehow
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I made here already a post but either didn't went through, was reported or disappeared - whatever.

What I said is that with a crazy cheap low rep SHAMS Company you don't have any serious options beside of RAKBANK anyway.

AED/USD like mentioned is affordable around 0.5% - all major banks charge 1-1.5% for cash withdraw - for bigger amounts starting 50.000 USD you can get a FX deal and they offer you better rate.

Just deposit EUR to one of our inhouse recommendations - make FX at 0.5% for all major currencies and withdraw again.

We do this mainly for CAD, AUD, NZD and EUR payments to go then either in AED or USD.
 
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