Banks and car dealerships have been playing a tricky game in the past few months: the dealers want the banks to lend in order to maintain sales, while the banks have grown ever more fearful of directing precious resources to customers they're worried might lose their jobs because of the financial crisis. I <a href="http://www.thenational.ae/article/20081213/NATIONAL/667997467">wrote about the trend</a> (with <b>Armina Ligaya</b>) back in December, when banks appeared to be blacklisting employees of property companies, construction companies and, in a stroke of irony, banks.<br/><br/>"They have banned some employees working for real estate companies, construction companies and anything related to finance: employees of banks and even insurance companies," <b>Roger Tannoury</b>, the finance and insurance manager at Abu Dhabi Motors, said at the time.<br/><br/>Since then, banks have become a little freer with lending, but many consumers still appear reluctant to finance car purchases because of their own worry about their jobs; a recent survey from Zurich, a large international insurance firm, revealed that over half of expats in the UAE were worried about their jobs.<br/><br/>To erase those fears and get people borrowing and buying cars again, Al Futtaim, one of the UAE's largest conglomerates, announced a plan today under which car buyers at its many dealerships get free insurance cover (provided by Arab Orient Insurance Company, which is also owned by Al Futtaim) that pays out 15 per cent of the car's purchase price in the event of a layoff. It's an interesting strategy, and certainly qualifies as one of a long list of ways in which companies in the UAE are devising creative strategies to weather the downturn. Release after the jump.<br/>