UAE banks’ pandemic support fund helped 320,000 customers, CB says

DUBAI: About 320,000 bank customers have benefited from the UAE’s COVID-19 support stimulus, the country’s central bank said, marking the fund’s first anniversary since it was launched.
The Targeted Economic Support Scheme (TESS) has “yielded positive impact for the UAE’s banking sector and the wider economy,” central bank governor Abdulhamid Saeed Alahmadi said in a meeting attended by  the country’s bank bosses.
From its inception last March, TESS has helped individuals, small to medium-size entrepreneurs and other private corporations navigate through the pandemic. There are about 175,000 customers under the current TESS deferral arrangements, WAM reported.
Overall liquidity of the UAE banking system had returned to pre-COVID levels, the meeting heard.
“The introduction of the stimulus package came at a critical juncture and ensured that banks were able to mitigate funding and liquidity pressures and maintain their lending capacity,” Alahmadi said.
The TESS program was the central bank’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which included a range of relief measures to the UAE’s banking sector related to funding, liquidity, lending, and capital.
“Our base projection envisages recovery of the UAE economy in 2021 with the real GDP to increase by 2.5 percent. CBUAE will continue to closely monitor market and economic developments both in the UAE and globally,” the governor said.