Lulu Exchange, NBAD launch payroll card

Abu Dhabi: Lulu International Exchange, a division of Emke Group, and the National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) yesterday launched My Card, the first co-branded payroll card in the UAE.

Launching My Card is part of Lulu's aggressive expansion plans and NBAD's strategy to strengthen and expand its Ratibi payroll card services.

Yousuf Ali MA, the Chairman of Emke Group; and Michael H. Tomalin, group chief executive of NBAD, signed the deal to launch the co-branded, multi-purpose My Card at a ceremony at One NBAD Tower.

Issued on NBAD's Ratibi system, My Card is 100 per cent compliant with the UAE government's Wages Protection System (WPS) guidelines, which seeks to protect employees by providing the government a mechanism to track salary payments.

My Card offers employers an efficient means to pay their workers, who in turn would access the funds with the co-branded NBAD Ratibi card. The programme incorporates into the banking system a segment of the population who otherwise would not have access to any banking services at all. Since the programme operates on the MasterCard network, RATIBI cardholders can use the card at all MasterCard-enabled ATMs and merchants throughout the world.

NBAD Ratibi was designed to replace salary payments by cheque and cash. It is a multifunctional card that has no minimum balance or annual fees, but serves as a virtual bank account. NBAD has over 400,000 Ratibi cardholders employed by over 2,400 companies in the UAE.