Middle East Banks - things every expat should know

The vast majority of us enjoy a high standard of living in Qatar. We have tax free salaries and, if we are lucky enough to be free of the burden of increasing house rents, our disposable income is generally higher than we would expect in our native countries. Banks will call you up and offer all sorts of inducements for you to transfer your salary to an account with them - credit cards come falling from the heavens if you are one of those who see a benefit in having multiple credit cards from different banks.

All of this is wonderful; sit back and enjoy the lack of queues and free coffee as each bank strives to create it's own little sanctuary for high-earning expatriates. Wonderful, that is, until (for whatever reason, be it end of contract or redundancy) you no longer have a job.

Your company is obliged to inform the bank that they no longer employ you. That same bank who cossetted and mollycoddled you the previous month will immediately freeze your bank accounts and credit cards; they will then arrange for you to meet someone from credit control, risk management, or whatever title they give that particular department. This individual will be a junior spotty clerk, with as much decision making ability as a bowl of custard. He (or she) will do nothing more than trot out the bank's policy and inform you that all assets will remain frozen for the immediate future.

Unless you know the name of and are on nodding terms with a senior officer of the bank (Deputy CEO or higher), this will remain the situation until you either find a new job (producing a new salary certificate) or have enough funds in your account to cover any outstanding loans and credit card balances (how many of you reading this have two car loans and a couple of credit cards?).

I will more than likely be staying in the GCC, and I have learned a valuable lesson: make sure you either get a company car, or lease one; pay off your credit card balances as soon as you can; and only keep enough money in the GCC to cover your monthly expenditure - there are many, many banks who will set up an offshore account for you that can be used in the same way as a local current account.

Hoepfully, this little nugget of information will prevent others from falling into the same trap as I did.