Emirates ID Cards Used as Bank Cards in Latest Step towards Smart Governance

Al Hilal Bank has become the first bank in the UAE to facilitate the use of ID cards as bank cards at its ATMs, the latest development in the country’s drive towards smart governance.

The Emirates has invested significant resources in moving services online, with this latest move attracting more than 8,000 customers of Al Hilal Bank to register their ID cards for bank use. The bank has 84,000 customers and 22 branches in the country.

Users are able to register their card at the ATM itself, and from there they can check the account balance and withdraw cash, request an account statement, chequebook and link their accounts with the ID card.

Once a customer’s accounts are linked with the ID card, he or she can transfer money between their accounts, using their ID card. They can continue using their ATM card as normal.

Online security expert SafeNet helped to provide the back end security infrastructure of the scheme, and commended this further shift towards smart service provision.

MEA regional sales director Sebastien Pavie told Business Review Middle East: “The use of ID cards as bank cards is another impressive demonstration of the UAE government’s drive to keep improving the access to and use of existing and new services.

“The deployment of smartcard based national ID cards done early on was already a great illustration of that.

“The multiplication of applications and use cases around them leveraging the user-friendliness and security of such a multipurpose smartcard shows the UAE’s willingness to keep bringing next generation applications and services to users while also making them easily and securely available; the Dubai Smart Government is another great example of leveraging the national ID to give access to a number of government services online via a single sign-on approach.”

With the World Expo coming to Dubai in 2020, the UAE could boast one of the smartest governments on the planet at a time when eyes across the globe will be firmly fixed on them.