UAE to assess if $19bn facility enough for banks

MORE MONEY: The UAE has already injected 25 billion dirhams into the banking system. (Getty Images)

The United Arab Emirates would look at whether a 70 billion dirham ($19.06 billion) facility is adequate to ease tight lending conditions among the Gulf state's lenders, a government official said on Wednesday.

The UAE finance ministry said last month it would inject 70 billion dirhams into the banking system, via bank deposits, in a move to give banks more money to lend to their clients during the credit crisis.

It poured the first 25 billion dirhams into bank deposits last month, and was in the process of disbursing the second 25 billion dirhams now, said Nasser Al-Shaikh, director-general of the Dubai Department of Finance.

"The intention is to close that by the end of next week and then they will move to the additional 20 billion and will assess if this is enough oil for our banking system," Al-Shaikh said. (Reuters)

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READERS' COMMENTS

Not enough
Posted by LK, Dubai, UAE on Thursday 20 November 2008 at 10:01 UAE time


Its not working and its not nearly enough - banks are still not lending and credit has all but seized - consumers are typically being doled out half of what they need in loans and probably a third of what they would have got using the same credentials in pre-Lehman times. Has creditworthiness changed that much in the UAE? Or is it just banks being spooked and overly cautious?

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