Financial comparison website Souqalmal.com has unveiled a financial education programme for corporate employees in the UAE.
The programme was introduced in response to demand from employers to train their employees to help alleviate their financial stress and increase productivity amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The financial stress some of the employees were facing was affecting their productivity level,” said Ambareen Musa, founder and chief executive of Souqalmal.
“Chief executives did not want to let these people go but unless the situation changed, they would have no choice.”
After a year of Covid-19 disrupting people's lives, finances are the top cause of employee stress, ranking above job, health and relationship stress combined, according to the 2021 PwC employee financial wellness survey.
About 63 per cent of full-time employees said their financial stress has increased since the start of the pandemic, the survey, which polled 1,600 full-time employees in the US, said.
A global recovery in working hours and incomes this year will be slow, uneven and uncertain, according to the International Labour Organisation.
The ILO: Covid-19 and the world of work report said the Covid-19 pandemic is set to cut working hours by 3 per cent, the equivalent of 90 million full-time jobs, compared with pre-crisis levels.
“As we saw the concerns of many employers and their request for help, we decided to launch the first-ever financial wellness programme for employees. This will allow employers to invest in improving employees’ financial health and, therefore, decrease the level of stress both at home and at work,” Ms Musa said.
Companies in the UAE can subscribe to Souqalmal’s financial education programme on a monthly basis. The programme cost will depend on the number of employees who will be provided access, Souqalmal said in a statement.
This will allow employers to invest in improving employees' financial health and, therefore, decrease the level of stress both at home and at work
The e-learning programme includes nine modules on topics such as budgeting, understanding a credit report, finding out the cost of buying a property in the UAE, buying and financing a car, how to manage your finances if you are new to the UAE, managing credit cards, understanding personal loans and remitting money.
The modules are made up of a combination of videos, presentations and a set of downloadable tools and calculators.
The programme will also cover common financial scams to promote awareness among consumers.
“We built it in a way where it becomes the repository of financial education for employees across the year,” Ms Musa said.
For instance, the module on buying a house offers a mortgage calculator, all costs involved in the house purchase and which ones are negotiable, what to watch out for, a checklist of what you need to ask the bank about the interest rate and how to negotiate the rate, she said.
All content in the financial education programme has been conceptualised considering UAE rules and regulations. The programme will be updated as and when new regulations are introduced in the Emirates.
Souqalmal will also unveil new modules and more tools every quarter, which will help users get closer to reaching their financial goals, Ms Musa said.
“One of the tools, for example, is a budgeting app, which will allow users to remove the chore of tracking expenses every day.”
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
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Gender pay parity on track in the UAE
The UAE has a good record on gender pay parity, according to Mercer's Total Remuneration Study.
"In some of the lower levels of jobs women tend to be paid more than men, primarily because men are employed in blue collar jobs and women tend to be employed in white collar jobs which pay better," said Ted Raffoul, career products leader, Mena at Mercer. "I am yet to see a company in the UAE – particularly when you are looking at a blue chip multinationals or some of the bigger local companies – that actively discriminates when it comes to gender on pay."
Mr Raffoul said most gender issues are actually due to the cultural class, as the population is dominated by Asian and Arab cultures where men are generally expected to work and earn whereas women are meant to start a family.
"For that reason, we see a different gender gap. There are less women in senior roles because women tend to focus less on this but that’s not due to any companies having a policy penalising women for any reasons – it’s a cultural thing," he said.
As a result, Mr Raffoul said many companies in the UAE are coming up with benefit package programmes to help working mothers and the career development of women in general.
Where to buy art books in the UAE
There are a number of speciality art bookshops in the UAE.
In Dubai, The Lighthouse at Dubai Design District has a wonderfully curated selection of art and design books. Alserkal Avenue runs a pop-up shop at their A4 space, and host the art-book fair Fully Booked during Art Week in March. The Third Line, also in Alserkal Avenue, has a strong book-publishing arm and sells copies at its gallery. Kinokuniya, at Dubai Mall, has some good offerings within its broad selection, and you never know what you will find at the House of Prose in Jumeirah. Finally, all of Gulf Photo Plus’s photo books are available for sale at their show.
In Abu Dhabi, Louvre Abu Dhabi has a beautiful selection of catalogues and art books, and Magrudy’s – across the Emirates, but particularly at their NYU Abu Dhabi site – has a great selection in art, fiction and cultural theory.
In Sharjah, the Sharjah Art Museum sells catalogues and art books at its museum shop, and the Sharjah Art Foundation has a bookshop that offers reads on art, theory and cultural history.
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