Banks have urge expatriates to ensure their names are written correctly in English and Arabic.
“Any discrepancy in the name written in Arabic and English is a serious obstacle in bank dealings,” Talat Hafiz, secretary-general of the Media Committee for Awareness in Banking Affairs, said in a statement Thursday.
When bank officials find the names on an iqama and the one on a check are spelled differently, they insist the names match.
Hafiz said Saudi banks were also keen to ensure that the writing of names in an expatriate customer’s passport and iqama were the same. He added that the issuance of iqama cards had reduced discrepancies in the writing of names to a great extent.
Sami Ali, an official of the Arab National Bank, said: “Bank customers should get any mistake rectified by the Passport Department as soon as they discover any difference in the writing of a name on their iqamas.”
Expatriates are annoyed at the mistakes committed in writing their names during the issuance or renewal of their iqamas.
“In the past, when the iqamas were handwritten, mistakes used to occur. But the new iqama cards have names printed on them and mistakes are few,” Abdul Raheem Mustafa, a Sudanese national working in the private sector, said. He added that banks used to ignore the mistakes in the writing of names in the past, but now they insist on the rectification of the mistakes.
According to regulations of the Passport Department, an iqama contains information such as name of the expatriate in full, nationality, date of birth, profession, place of issue, validity and name of sponsor. All the information is supplied by the applicant in the form accompanying the application for a new iqama or its renewal. Banks also depend on iqamas for information about an expatriate customer rather than on his passport.
Although errors in writing names in iqamas are common, expatriates are not permitted to take their iqamas for correction to the Passport Department. It is the sponsor who should do it, Abu Nuwaf, who works at a liaison official, said.
Banks won't accept mismatch of names
