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In a significant advancement for digital payments in the UAE, the Direct Debit System, the country's first paperless direct debit marketplace, has joined forces with Keyper, a technology-enabled property management platform, to introduce the UAE's inaugural digital rental payments platform accessible to all tenants and landlords.
This collaboration addresses the traditional reliance on post-dated cheques (PDC) for transactions, providing a solution for property owners to receive rent payments digitally. The Direct Debit System enables automatic rent deductions from tenants' bank accounts, functioning similarly to PDCs. This technological shift aims to eliminate the challenges associated with cheque acceptance, management, and processing, aligning with the strategic directives of the UAE Central Bank and the government to transition towards modern payment methods.
As part of the partnership, Keyper is integrating its rent facilitation services, known as "Rent Now Pay Later," into the rental process. This service provides tenants with the flexibility to make monthly digital payments while ensuring landlords receive payments upfront. The move towards digital payments is expected to enhance the rental experience for both landlords and tenants, along with reducing operational costs linked to rent payment processing. This initiative is particularly advantageous for non-resident property investors in Dubai, offering them a seamless way to lease their properties and receive digital payments from anywhere in the world.
Despite the advancements in digital solutions, the adoption of digital rent payments has been slow, with 95% of tenants still using cheques. This collaboration specifically targets individual and small-to-medium landlords, representing the majority of property rentals in Dubai.
Omar Abu Innab, co-founder and CEO of Keyper, emphasized the need for a modern solution, stating, “Cheques are a relic of the past. The need for our solution has been evident, as all stakeholders in the ecosystem are dissatisfied with cheques but lacked a viable alternative that preserved the functionality and the security of cheques without adding significant friction. Embedding direct debit into our service will help numerous landlords in the UAE who have multiple assignment of receivables and loans from banks against their properties.”