Domain Glossary

Kredal operates in UAE SME banking and compliance. These terms recur across the product, scoring, and reports.

Term	Meaning
Trade license	The core document authorising a company to operate in the UAE, issued by a mainland authority (e.g. DED) or a free zone. Lists permitted activity codes.
Activity code	The licensed business activity classification. A mismatch between the code and what the business actually does is a common bank-rejection trigger.
Mainland / Free zone / Financial free zone	Jurisdiction types. Free-zone companies must satisfy both federal rules and their free-zone authority; activity-code and banking mismatches are frequent friction points.
UBO — Ultimate Beneficial Owner	The natural person(s) who ultimately own or control 25%+ of a company. Banks require a clear UBO chain to a real person; a missing or unclear UBO declaration is a top rejection cause.
MOA / AOA	Memorandum / Articles of Association — the incorporation documents. Required for multi-owner entities.
KYC — Know Your Customer	The bank's identity- and risk-verification process. Post-FATF-grey-list-exit, UAE bank KYC tightened.
Source of funds / source of wealth	Where the money funding the business (and the owner's wealth) comes from. Banks increasingly demand documented explanations, even after an account is open.
Emirates ID	The UAE national identity card, required for resident owners.
Ejari	Dubai's tenancy-registration system; the office/lease proof banks expect (free zones have their own equivalents).
WPS — Wage Protection System	The mandatory electronic salary-payment system for mainland employers. Real-time validation (WPS 2.0, 2025) rejects files on small mismatches; penalties are steep.
Corporate tax	UAE corporate tax (0% up to AED 375k, 9% above). Registration and filing status affect bank and compliance readiness.
VAT	Value Added Tax; registration is required above a turnover threshold.
Emiratisation	Quotas requiring a share of Emirati nationals in the workforce for firms of certain sizes; non-compliance carries fines and work-permit blocks.
Open Finance	The UAE's regulated framework (live 2026) for consented, API-based sharing of bank transaction data — the basis for a future live bankability score.
Bankability / readiness score	Kredal's deterministic 0–100 assessment of how likely a bank is to reject the file, with the specific reasons and fixes. Not a credit score.