Bank Hapoalim head says UAE financial deals coming soon

Dov Kotler, the head of Bank Hapoalim who led an Israeli business delegation to the UAE this week, tells The Associated Press that he expects to strike deals soon with major lenders in the United Arab Emirates for the first time.

Kotler says financial agreements will follow the signing of a pact at a White House ceremony on September 15.

“The spectrum is huge,” Kotler says, involving investment in both countries’ stock exchanges and joint ventures in financial technology. “We’d like to have the [Emiratis] visiting us and [receiving] mortgages in Israel, too.”

Kotler says Bank Hapoalim is in talks to partner with the three largest banks in the UAE, but declines to give their names or a timeline for the deals. First Abu Dhabi Bank and Emirates NBD are known as the country’s top two.

— AP