There is nothing wrong with taking a few days off from work.
Everyone needs a break. But there is a not-so-fine line between taking time off to rest and recuperate and taking so much time off that it impacts others around you.
Businesses can’t run if essential services aren’t available, and that includes banking. Which brings us to the question — why is the UAE banking sector shutting down for a week?
No other sector is as integral to businesses as banking. Its very existence ensures that economies function by providing services like cheque clearing, loans and safe transfer of fund.
In modern cities, especially like Dubai, which were built on business, it’s an essential item, like oxygen.
Try going without breathing for five days.
Yet that is what the UAE’s banking sector is currently asking the country to do.
When the banks closed on Sunday, that was the last opportunity for customers to do anything other than use an ATM for five days.
Considering that most economies outside the Gulf work a Monday-to-Friday schedule, this break effectively cuts off the banking sector from the international economy for 10 days.
UAE banks will not be open at the same time as most international banks from August 18 to 26 (including the weekends when international banks are also closed).
The banking sector should be regarded as an essential service, similar to police, medical or fire brigade. These sectors never get a day off, for the obvious reason that if they did, people would die.
While no one’s life is on the line when it comes to banking, people’s livelihoods are. It is arrogant and inappropriate for people who hold the money and control the access to other banking systems to hold the rest of us hostage so they can go on leave.
The UAE is not an island of economic activity.
We are in an international hub for trade and commerce and the failure to provide those services to the business community threatens our reputation.
Clients and foreign banks, who will continue to work over the next week, will still be expecting payments and transfers that are now impossible to send.
Developed nations usually offer only two days off at a time even at the height of their holiday season, limiting the impact of their closures.
The UAE banking sector needs to develop a similar work ethic that reflects the business community’s needs.
