News

Keeping our pockets full of dirhams
1 January, 2009

DUBAI, UAE, 1st January 2009 - Behind at least five security coded doors in an unprepossessing Dubai office building, several men remove white bags filled with cash from a conveyor belt.

As daylight pours through blast-proof glass windows lined with steel bars, the men – each dressed in brown shirts and pocketless black trousers – quickly count the wads of notes.

Four security cameras are trained on each of the men, recording their every movement as they prepare hundreds of thousands of dirhams collected for counting from one of 1,700 ATMs under the care of Transguard Group (TG).

Security at Dubai’s largest cash management centre (CMC) could hardly be tighter. Mirrors on the walls ensure the cameras capture every angle as the bags are opened by trusted staff, recruited internally following a vetting procedure taking months.

More than 173 full-colour, high-resolution, cameras record every movement inside the centre, a feat requiring more than 30km of cable.

This week the centre is working at capacity as millions of dirhams pass through its hands as testimony to the Eid spending bonanza.

Inside one of the smaller vaults, which hold daily cash floats for the banks’ commercial customers – such as the major supermarket chains – approximately AED 400 million (US$109m) in AED 5, AED 10, AED 100 and AED 500 notes sits in locked, guarded steel cages. Cash leaves and enters the vault every hour, except for one cage that contains AED 200,000 in brand new, neatly packed notes from the Central Bank. These notes are kept aside for major holidays and festivals.

"Here in the Arab Muslim world, people offer gifts of money at Eid – usually AED 100 and AED 500 – and they want brand-new notes," says Scott Connolly, international director for TG.

"Everyone knows the best notes are in the ATMs so over the three days they wipe them out. It's that quick that by the time the teams get back from replenishing the machines, they have to go back again."Around AED 500m of notes are used on average in those three days, AED 100 and AED 500 notes. There can be none left at the banks or the cash centres, but within three days after Eid ends the notes are back here because people have started spending them again.”

Despite being within a fully functioning office building the centre operates as a stand-alone facility, with separate electricity and data systems so it is not affected if the rest of the building’s power goes down.“At no point can that cash go out of sight because if any bank asks us to see the opening of the bag we have to be able to provide it," Mr Connolly says.

Even staff uniforms are designed with security in mind: “There are no turned-down collars, hems are as small and flat as possible so nothing can be hidden in there and there are no pockets. That not only protects us as a company but also our staff.

"All staff are searched before they enter and leave by security with metal detectors. Any discrepancy found in any department must be checked."

He adds: "We also have blast protection on the glass in the case of any explosive threat or bomb. It wouldn’t retain the explosion but it would stop glass fragmenting and coming onto the premises.

"I guarantee that the cash in your pocket right now has come through this cash centre at some point. In essence we are probably the biggest recycling centre in the Middle East. Business is booming. People say it’s all about credit but we are seeing an increase in the demand for cash."

The cash management centre was opened by Transguard, in collaboration with De La Rue – the world’s largest commercial security printer and papermaker, whose counting and sorting equipment is used by many central banks – in 2006.

Within two years, says Mr Connolly, TG has increased its processing capacity from 800,000 notes a day to more than three million.

Seeing a growing need for cash processing in the capital, TG is opening a pilot centre, half the size of its Dubai operation, in Abu Dhabi.

In Dubai, cash comes into the centre 24 hours a day, peak times being late at night. Usman Younas, operations manager, says: “We deal with around three million notes a day, or 1,500 bags of cash – large and small.

"The end of the month is usually the busiest period because that’s when the salaries go in and the ATMs are hit hard."

But not as hard as during Eid and Ramadan.

Cash is delivered to the centre by Transguard security drivers who bring the sealed, barcoded bags containing cash to the control room or receiving area. Access is via three air-locked, security coded doors. These delivery men do not enter the cash management area, but hand over the bags to three security guards inside the receiving area.

From there the still-sealed bags are taken to the “reception area” – a futuristic glass room where the bags’ barcodes are scanned for information about the amount of notes they contain and where they came from.

The bags are then sent by conveyor belt to the processing area. There, staff open them for the first time and carry out a simple visual count of the contents. Then they are sent by another conveyor belt to the largest, fastest processing machine in the world. It counts and sorts notes at lightening speed, removing counterfeits and weeding out those unfit to be in circulation.

Custom-made in Dallas, Texas, for Dubai’s centre, the hardware works on compressed air and can process five currencies, dealing with one note in 0.3 of a second, or 1,800 in one minute.

Each note goes through 20 stages to check if it is counterfeit. Mr Younas says two or three forged notes are found daily. Most fakes are for AED 100 and AED 500, but they are not so commonplace as to be a serious concern.

Here in the UAE, at least, it seems cash is still king.

This story first appeared in the National Newspaper December 8, 2008