Some Islamic banks impose new fee

Dubai: Some Islamic banks have imposed a maintenance fee of Dh25 on all saving accounts which have a balance of less than Dh3,000.

They also started handling these accounts like current accounts, which earn no interest.

The new charges came into effect from the first week of May, Al Khaleej Arabic daily reported.

These banks applied conditions if clients wished to have saving accounts without a minimum balance of Dh3,000 and without paying the maintenance fees.

These conditions include linking the account to a fixed deposit, thus making it the deposit's cash account, or acquiring another product of service offered by the bank.

The new fees do not apply to salary transfer accounts arranged by companies.

The banks attributed the fees to increasing costs in the past period, adding that they had to make such minor changes to offer good services.