National Bonds to quadruple monthly prize draws

National Bonds is quadrupling its monthly prize draws from this month, its CEO announced on Sunday.

The UAE’s national savings scheme will start weekly draws for its weekly millionaire prize on 9 May, Mohammed Qasim Al-Ali said.

“Through our weekly prize draws, we will reward over 60 million dirhams in prize money and make 39 new millionaires in 2009,” said Al-Ali.

National Bonds was established in March 2006 in a bid to encourage more nationals and expatriates to save.

Under the new format, there will be 101 prizes available every week from AED1m to AED500, amounting to AED1,155,000 every week.

Last month Al-Ali told Arabian Business he aimed to double sales in National Bonds this year, taping into the region’s high net worth clients. He said he expected sales in the savings scheme to increase to 5.2 billion dirhams ($1.5bn) this year.

“We tend to double profits, so we are aiming for about 5.2bn dirhams of funds overall in 2009,” he said.

He said he didn’t think the global economic crisis would stop people from buying the bonds.

“It doesn’t mean people will stop saving, people will always save. If you take it from a different angle, when you go to the malls you still see people shopping – what does that indicate? [That] people are spending and if they are spending then they can save.”

Dubai-based National Bonds is 50 percent owned by the government of Dubai. Other equal stakeholders include Emaar Properties, Dubai Bank and Dubai Holding.

In January the scheme announced 2008 profits of 7.07 percent, compared to 6.03 percent the previous year.

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