Bye Bye NBK, hello Islamic Banking System

I’ve been thinking about moving my finances (chinna 3inde wayed :P) to an islamic bank and migrating from the one i’m currently in. Although i love the service I get from NBK Everything with them is easy and professional, is easy to get financing, easy to contact the people there. But unfortunately for me i’m heading into the keep your money islamic banking systems mode.

What triggered this ? My Visa card is about to expire on 7/11, so about a week ago exaclty i guy from NBK calls me up saying your card is expiring would you like us to renew it for you, ofcourse he was like renewal is free and this is to make sure you don’t get stuck with an expired card! I was going to stay with NBK as long as my Visa was with them, it was kind of one of the only reasons for me to still be with NBK.

What happened next ? I waited five days and got my card, the card number was changed, it was a new card, but the Expiry Date was still the same !!!!!

So I called up their contact center, and they were like you have to go to the card dept. and get it sorted its not possible to sort this out on the phone. My next response was simply please cancel my credit card. Thank you i’ll be moving out of NBK! But you have a couple of extra KD’s in your balance i’ll put in a transfer request and then you call back again for a cancellation request.

So I though why not. I called them up today again to cancel my Visa card. They said ok, can you please tell us why I said, wanted to move to an islamic bank. So.. Time to discover my options. I’ll be starting  a transfer request after this month’s salary just to ensure nothing goes wrong hehe..  Some say they will make it as impossible as ever to transfer from one bank, i guess i’ll have to wait and see..

Which Islamic bank do you recommend ?

A Visa or Mastercard is a must for me, especially when I travel, I use Amex for emergencies, but the only problem with it, is that in the ME its not an authorized type of payment everywhere, and can leave you hanging sometimes!