In a historic move, Dubai Land Department (DLD) has joined hands with one of the top banks in UAE, Emirates NBD to strengthen the UAE’s real estate sector. As a part of this initiative, Emirates NBD will empower DLD in automating rental cheque payments and will digitize the rent collection process using the Central Bank of the UAE’s Direct Debit System (UAEDDS). 

The collaboration between the Dubai Land Department and Emirates NBD is perceived to be a big support for the UAE rental market. This move will revolutionize the existing system of paying rents by cheques with online payments and will bring a plethora of opportunities for all the real estate stakeholders.

The Impact on Landlords and PM Firms

This digitization of the rent collection process is in line with Dubai’s ambitious vision of building a paperless payment ecosystem and the Dubai 10X initiative. This move is indeed encouraging news for the landlords and property management (PM) firms as the partnership aims at automating a vast majority of administrative tasks involved in managing the post-dated cheques manually. 

Digitization of rental cheques will minimize the need to maintain huge paperwork for the landlords as well as for the PM firms and will lead to a substantial reduction in their operational costs. This will also curtail the impact of their operations on the environment and save more trees.

How Will Digitization of the Rent Collection Facilitate Tenants?

The digitization of the rent collection is also in the best interests of the tenants. It will provide a seamless digital option for them to pay their rent using a bank account. This will also facilitate tenants in moving away from the conventional ways of making payments via. cheques and avail the flexible payment plans from their landlords and property management firms.  This collaboration will lead to the automation of all real estate transactions and lead Dubai towards digitization.

Big Boost for International Investments 

The journey of investing in the Dubai property market for international investors has now become much easier. Investors can now buy property by opening non-resident savings accounts with Emirates NBD which will facilitate them throughout the property purchase process and in managing it and collecting rent later on. The overseas investors will be assisted by a dedicated relationship management team to streamline the account opening process.   

How Do Online Rent Payments Work in the West?

The online rent collection process has been working well for more than a decade in western nations like the US, UK, and EU.  It allows landlords to automate the rent collection and manage their rental property income and expenses. Digitizing the rent collection process is equally beneficial for the tenants as they can securely transfer their rents to the landlord’s or Property management firm’s bank account. 

Popular American Rent collection Application Zelle Pay allows sending and collecting rent payments instantly through the banking app, or the Zelle app if the tenant/landlord bank doesn’t support Zelle Pay yet. The transfers are free and but the user must have a valid US mobile number or email address (as long as the other person already has Zelle). Another popular US rent collection app – RentRedi is a Landlord app to manage rent, late fees, and evictions, and send rent reminders from one dashboard. RentRedi app. provides flexible payment options and allows Landlords to collect Rent via. bank accounts, ACH, credit card, and cash. Once the app. is downloaded by the tenant, they can schedule auto-pay enabled for ACH, banking account & credit card payment methods to pay their rents. RentRedi also allows landlords to customize and control payments from their dashboard and settings, including setting up partial payments or block payments, in the case of evictions.

Venmo Software/ App. is widely used to collect rent. It facilitates sending and receiving money quickly and easily through their app to people on your contact list. The user must connect to people through social media and can use their email or phone number if they already have a Venmo account for collecting rent. 

Paypal is widely used in the UK & European nations to pay and receive rent payments. been around for a while now. Paypal allows tenants to quickly, easily, and securely send their rents to the landlord who has a Paypal account through their app or online. Landlords also use Payal to collect rent.