Table of Contents
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What are credit review services in the UAE?
A: Credit review services provide independent credit assessment, portfolio review, credit risk analysis, IFRS 9 modelling, and credit policy advisory to UAE banks, finance companies, corporates, and SME lenders.
Q: Who uses credit review services in the UAE?
A: UAE banks reviewing credit portfolios, finance companies assessing SME lending books, corporates managing counterparty credit risk, and treasury teams advising on credit policy and governance frameworks.
Q: What is the Al Etihad Credit Bureau (AECB)?
A: AECB is the UAE federal credit bureau providing centralised credit information infrastructure, supporting credit assessment, lending decisions, and credit review activities across the UAE financial services ecosystem.
Q: Does credit review require regulatory approval?
A: Credit review services under this activity code does not require third-party approval. Providers offer independent advisory services without performing regulated lending, rating, or audit activities.
Q: What is IFRS 9 credit review?
A: IFRS 9 is the international accounting standard governing expected credit loss (ECL) measurement on financial instruments. Credit review providers support banks with ECL modelling, validation, and stress testing under IFRS 9.
How to Start a Credit Review Services Business with Meydan Free Zone
Every bank in the UAE carries a loan book, and every loan book needs a second opinion. Someone has to look at what the lender is holding, work out how much of it is likely to go bad, and say so plainly. That is credit review, and it is bought as a service rather than built in-house.
This guide covers what activity code 6619.98 lets you do, who buys the work, how to license it, and what the market looks like. It is a specialist trade, but it is not a regulated one, which makes the setup simpler than most people expect.
Key Stats at a Glance
What This License Covers
Under activity code 6619.98 you provide credit review services to banks, finance companies, corporates and SME lenders. The work splits into three strands, and most firms lead with one of them.
The first is bank credit portfolio review. That means independent portfolio review, asset quality assessment, IFRS 9 expected credit loss modelling and validation, and stress testing for UAE banks and finance companies.
The second is corporate and counterparty advice, covering counterparty credit risk assessment, trade credit policy, treasury credit risk frameworks and credit committee process design.
The third is SME work: credit assessment, portfolio diagnostics, collection strategy advice, and underwriting support for finance companies and SME lenders.
There are edges to this. The activity leaves out insurance agents and brokers, which sit under activities auxiliary to insurance and pension funding, and it leaves out the management of investment funds, which sits under fund management.
Put simply, if you review credit for UAE banks, finance companies, corporates or SME lenders, you are in.
Who Your Clients Will Be
The buyer list is short but the budgets are not:
- UAE banks reviewing retail, SME and corporate credit portfolios
- Finance companies assessing SME lending books
- Corporates managing counterparty credit risk
- Treasury teams working on credit policy and governance
A typical mandate might be an asset quality review of a bank's corporate book, support on IFRS 9 modelling and validation, or scenario analysis across a finance company's retail and SME portfolios.
On the corporate side, it might be sizing up a new trading partner, designing a trade credit policy and limits framework, or advising on credit risk across deposits and currency counterparties.
Mainland or Free Zone
Meydan Free Zone gives you full foreign ownership, no corporate tax on qualifying income and a licensing process that runs online from start to finish.
For a small advisory firm with two or three senior people, that is a cheap and clean base. Mainland makes more sense if your pipeline is weighted towards clients who want a local entity on the contract. Let your clients decide it, not the price.
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Step by Step Setup Guide
- Step 1, book your trade name: Use the DET portal for a mainland company, or the Meydan Free Zone portal for a free zone one.
- Step 2, confirm the activity code: Check that 6619.98, Credit Review Services, is approved where you are applying, and that your intended scope sits inside it.
- Step 3, send in your documents: Passport copies for every shareholder and director, plus a short description of the review services you intend to offer.
- Step 4, take the license: No third-party approval is needed for this activity, so there is no regulator to clear before the license is issued.
- Step 5, open a bank account: Banks want a valid trade license and clean compliance paperwork. Allow time, because financial services firms draw closer questions during onboarding.
Compliance and What You Need in Place
Third-party approval
None is needed for this business activity. You are giving independent advice, not lending, rating or auditing, and the activity is written to keep you on that side of the line.
Anti-money laundering
This activity is exempt from AML compliance duties, which keeps your reporting load light next to regulated financial trades.
Staying independent
Independence is the product. Keep clear separation from regulated lending and credit rating work, and from licensed audit firms. A client buys your review because nobody in the room has a stake in the answer, so anything that muddies that damages the thing you are selling.
Data and tools
The work runs on credit risk expertise across rating, modelling and sector analysis, and on the ability to handle data properly, including working alongside Al Etihad Credit Bureau information and the modelling tools your clients already use.
Relationships
This is repeat business, not one-off work. Banks and finance companies come back to reviewers they trust, so the second mandate is usually easier to win than the first.
Market Opportunity
UAE banking sector assets exceed USD 1 trillion, according to the Central Bank of the UAE, and the big lenders run large credit portfolios across retail, SME and corporate segments.
Al Etihad Credit Bureau sits underneath all of it as the federal credit information infrastructure, which gives every reviewer a common starting point for assessment.
Statista puts UAE Financial Advisory at USD 186.73 billion in 2025 and projects USD 213.10 billion by 2030. That growth does not arrive evenly. It lands hardest on firms that pair credit expertise with real analytics capability and a position clearly separate from the lenders they review.
SME lending is the segment worth watching. It is supported by Al Etihad Credit Bureau data and served by dedicated finance companies alongside the SME divisions of the major banks, with Etihad Credit Insurance providing trade credit cover behind it.
That mix creates steady demand for diagnostics, underwriting support and collection strategy work.
Conclusion
Credit review is a specialist trade with an unusually clean setup path in Dubai. No third-party approval, no AML burden, and a market where the buyers are large, well funded and used to paying for outside opinions.
What decides whether it works is narrower than the license. Pick a niche and be known for it, whether that is IFRS 9 advisory, stress testing, corporate credit review, SME diagnostics or governance frameworks.
Then protect your independence, because it is the only thing a client cannot get from their own team.
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References
- Central Bank of the UAE
- Statista, Financial Advisory United Arab Emirates
- Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism
