How we compare

What we track

For each product we record the details that usually decide the real cost and the chance of approval:

• Published fees — card rates, monthly or annual fees, per-transaction charges, minimum balances.
• Eligibility — minimum salary, salary-transfer requirements, license type (mainland / free zone), required documents.
• Approval details — stated timelines and onboarding requirements where the provider publishes them.
• Licensing — the regulator each provider operates under and the status of that licence.

How products are ordered

Products appear in catalogue order — the order our editorial team maintains. There is no automatic formula that sorts by total cost, and no product carries an award or a "featured winner" badge. Position is not sold.

Zero fees vs undisclosed fees

A product with no published fee is not the same as a free product. Where a provider does not publish a fee or a requirement, our tables show "not published" — we never render a missing value as zero or estimate it in the provider's favour. The distinction matters: an undisclosed monthly fee can exceed the highest published one.

Licensing verification

Provider licences are recorded against the issuing regulator — UAE Central Bank, DFSA, FSRA and others — with a note on the licence scope where it matters for eligibility. A licence entry reflects our catalogue record at the stated review date; confirm current standing on the regulator's public register before applying.

Update cadence

Products carry a last-reviewed date; high-churn fields (fees, approval times, offers) are rechecked on a rolling cycle and after provider announcements. Dataset pages state which fields were published at review time, so numbers age visibly rather than silently.

Editorial review and corrections

The catalogue is maintained by the Raqma editorial team; fee and eligibility fields are checked against the provider's own published schedule before they change, never against marketing claims alone. Spot an outdated fee or a missing requirement? Send the correction to [email protected] — we verify it against the provider's published terms before the field is updated.

Partner placements

Some outbound apply-links are partner relationships that pay us a referral fee. They are the same tracked links for every provider, partner or not — placement, order and content never depend on whether a referral agreement exists.

What the numbers mean

Fees shown come from provider pages and our own notes. They can exclude VAT, FX margins and tier-specific extras, and required documents or criteria vary between applicants. Where a product shows a last-reviewed date, that is the date we last checked it — it is not a verification guarantee, and there is no fixed re-verification schedule.

How the selector orders matches

The quick selector on our browse page filters the catalogue by your answers — vertical, licence type, priority — and orders the result by catalogue fields: monthly and minimum-balance costs, stated approval times, currency coverage, and our internal rank score. It is a deterministic sort over published data, not a recommendation or a paid placement. The reasons shown next to each match are the exact fields that moved it up.

How we measure AI answers

People increasingly ask AI assistants which bank or payment provider to use. We run a fixed set of UAE business-finance questions through major AI assistants on a weekly cadence and record when Raqma or a listed provider is mentioned or cited. That data tells us which facts AI systems already trust and where our catalogue has gaps — it drives what we verify and publish next, not the order of the catalogue.

Where "Apply" links go

Apply buttons route through a redirect on raqma.ai that counts the click and preserves campaign parameters before sending you to the provider's own page. Position in the catalogue is not sold.

Other places to compare

Raqma is not the only comparison source for this market, and we would rather tell you that ourselves: where to compare UAE business banking maps every comparison site — general aggregators, free-zone specialists and fintech editorial — with what each one actually covers.

What Raqma is not

Raqma is a comparison service, not a bank, lender or financial adviser. We do not hold funds, process payments or guarantee approval — the provider decides whether to approve an application. An unpublished fee is a gap in our data, not a free product. Confirm current terms and pricing with the provider before you apply. See also how we make money.