UAE banks threaten customers

An increasing number of banks in the UAE were using heavy-handed tactics to collect debts, even when the sums involved are very little. Banks in the UAE are now being forced to relax debt repayment plans in a bid to recoup outstanding loans from debtors who have left the country. Lenders are now accepting realistic payment plans and using threats of jail less frequently for debtors still residing in the country. One of the core reasons for debtors to take the extreme course of action and leave everything here and just go back, was the fact that the bank thought the debtors who took out mortgages had cash that they could obtain from family who could support them and pay out the mortgage and clear the bank debts. This approach backfired causing heavy losses to all UAE banks. Now it look the banks are more approachable to the repayment plans. “I think maybe over the last couple of years they’ve come to the discovery that when they say they can’t pay it out, they really can’t. Banks have now realized that they don’t really have a legal avenue to chase them overseas so now they’re being a bit more open to negotiation,” she added. UAE lenders, unable to recoup their losses from debtors abroad, are becoming more open to negotiation, said Stirling, founder and author of Detained in Dubai. “I’m still seeing a lot of negotiations that are going on with people who have left Dubai and have returned to England or Europe who are negotiating payment plans with the banks and trying to arrange things amicably,” she said. According to a recent survey eighty percent of UAE’s residents have outstanding debts and claim to be having threatening calls from the police and banks over their loans.