In recent years, Dubai has accelerated its push to simplify business setup, strengthen data-led governance, and remove friction across the investor journey. At the centre of this shift is the Dubai Unified Licence (DUL), a single source of verified business identity that is already reshaping how companies interact with banks, regulators, and government services across the emirate.

In this interview, Salwa Aladidi, director of the Business Data Management Department at the Dubai Business Registration and Licensing Corporation (DBLC), discusses how unified data systems are transforming everything from banking access and licensing efficiency to regulatory oversight.

Aladidi also explains how Dubai is moving toward a more connected, intelligence-led ecosystem that supports faster business growth while strengthening trust and transparency across the economy.

Against the backdrop of ongoing global economic and geopolitical uncertainty, what factors continue to make Dubai a stable and attractive platform for businesses and investors?

Dubai’s strength lies not only in its business-friendly environment, but in its proven ability to navigate periods of disruption and emerge stronger. The emirate has successfully managed global financial crises, the Covid-19 pandemic, and periods of regional uncertainty, and its response to each has been defined by the same qualities: decisive leadership, agility, adaptability and coordinated actions across government and the private sector. The current environment is no exception. The situation in Dubai remains stable, with public services operational and key sectors, including aviation, logistics, trade, and tourism, continuing to function.

Dubai has one of the world’s most advanced integrated systems for managing periods of disruption, built through years of institutional preparation and public-private coordination. This institutional readiness has been reinforced through decisive economic action. The Dhs1bn economic incentive package effective from April 1, demonstrates the speed and resolve with which Dubai’s leadership responds to support businesses and maintain economic momentum. Measures include the deferral of a range of government and licensing fees for three months, relief for the hospitality sector including the postponement of sales fees and the Tourism Dirham, and the extension of customs data grace periods from 30 to 90 days.

This resilience and action, combined with Dubai’s track record of recovery and growth, continues to reinforce its position as a stable and globally competitive hub for business and investment.

The Dubai Unified License is often described as a step-change for business identity and verification, how exactly is it reshaping banking access and reducing friction for companies operating in Dubai?

The Dubai Unified Licence (DUL), launched by Dubai Business Registration and Licensing Corporation (DBLC), part of the Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism (DET), has fundamentally changed how business identity is established, verified, and used across Dubai’s wider enterprise ecosystem. Since its rollout, more than 900,000 DULs have been issued to businesses across the emirate, reflecting the scale at which the system is now embedded into the business landscape.

What makes this significant is that business identity is no longer fragmented across multiple licences, jurisdictions, and datasets.

Today, every business in Dubai is anchored to a single, government-verified identity that consolidates legal structure, ownership, licensed activities, branches, and authorised signatories into one consistent and trusted source of data.

The practical impact has been considerable. Our partnership with Emirates NBD, one of the first banks integrated into the DUL framework it has cut the average time to open a business bank account which shows how significantly the system is changing the day-to-day experience for businesses.

Beyond banking, the DUL enables more seamless interactions across government and semi-government services, including the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MoHRE), Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), Dubai Trade, and the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA). Businesses now engage with essential services through a single verified identity, reducing duplication, improving data quality, and significantly enhancing ease of doing business.

Rather than repeatedly re-establishing credentials with each new entity, businesses engage through a trusted, standardised identity layer, shifting the process from repeated verification to faster validation, in turn improving confidence, transparency, and speed across the ecosystem.

Dubai consistently ranks high on ease of doing business. What specific structural or regulatory shifts in recent years have had the most tangible impact on improving the investor journey?

The most consequential shift has been structural rather than incremental: Dubai has moved from improving individual services in isolation to redesigning the entire investor journey around the needs of the business. This distinction matters as it explains why the impact has been felt across the lifecycle rather than at a single point of interaction.

The first dimension of this has been the transition to a fully digital, end-to-end journey through the Invest in Dubai platform. Rather than navigating multiple disconnected services, investors can now complete key steps through a single integrated interface, significantly reducing handoffs, duplication, and processing time.

The second catalyst has been targeted regulatory reform, including the expansion of 100 per cent foreign ownership, the streamlining of licensing requirements, and the elimination of redundant approvals, all of which have materially improved the speed and simplicity of market entry. This has created a more flexible operating environment without unnecessary administrative complexity.

The third shift has been the introduction of unified identity and data systems, principally the DUL and the Dubai Investor Number, which allow verified business information to be reused across multiple business touchpoints instead of being resubmitted at every stage.

Together, these changes have enabled Dubai to move from a transaction-based model to a lifecycle-based one, where the focus is not simply on completing administrative steps, but on enabling investors to move seamlessly from setup to operation and long-term growth.

From your vantage point, where are businesses still facing bottlenecks when setting up or scaling in Dubai, and how is DBLC working to eliminate these gaps?

At DBLC, our approach is firmly anchored in the voice of the customer, which serves as the primary guide for how we identify, prioritise, and address bottlenecks across the investor journey. We continuously capture investor feedback across every touchpoint from platform interactions to direct engagement and combine this with journey analytics to ensure that our improvements are driven by real customer needs.

Through this, we see that bottlenecks today are less about core processes, and more about the overall experience across multiple touchpoints. From a customer perspective, this includes how easily businesses can navigate next steps after licensing, how clearly requirements are understood, and how smoothly they transition into full operations.

For example, voice of customer insights consistently highlighted banking onboarding as a key friction point. In response, and guided by this feedback, we worked closely with partners to enable greater reliance on government-verified data reducing duplication, improving consistency, and supporting a faster, more predictable experience.

This same voice of customer approach continues to shape how we refine the broader journey. We are making the experience more intuitive, transparent, and connected simplifying guidance, improving clarity of requirements, and ensuring that services across entities are better aligned from the investor’s perspective.

The direction is clear: the voice of the customer is directly shaping how the journey evolves ensuring businesses can move from setup to growth with greater ease and confidence.

Digital transformation and AI are central to Dubai’s agenda, how are these technologies being deployed within licensing and data management to move from reactive governance to predictive, intelligence-led regulation?

The most tangible demonstration of how we address friction is the banking onboarding journey. Before DUL integration, opening a business bank account took an average of 65 days, whereas today it takes just five. That improvement came directly from listening to what businesses told us was slowing them down, then working with banking partners to build a solution grounded in government-verified data.

At DBLC, our approach is anchored in continuous business feedback, which serves as the primary guide for how we identify, prioritise, and address bottlenecks across the investor journey. We capture investor input across every touchpoint, from platform interactions to direct engagement, and combine this with journey analytics to ensure improvements are driven by real customer needs.

What this reveals is that bottlenecks today are less about core processes, and more about the coherence of the experience across multiple touchpoints: how easily businesses can navigate next steps after licensing, how clearly requirements are communicated, and how smoothly they transition into full operations.

For example, voice of customer insights consistently highlighted banking onboarding as a key friction point. In response, and guided by this feedback, we collaborated closely with partners to enable greater reliance on government-verified data, which reduced duplication, improved consistency, and supported a faster, more predictable experience.

This approach continues to shape how we refine the broader journey. We are making the experience more intuitive, transparent, and connected, simplifying guidance, improving clarity of requirements, and ensuring that services across entities are better aligned from the investor’s perspective.

Several leading banks are now integrated into the DUL system, including Emirates Islamic, Mashreq, Commercial Bank of Dubai, First Abu Dhabi Bank, Emirates NBD, Emirates Development Bank, and Ruya Bank. Integration has also expanded to government and semi-government entities, including MoHRE, DEWA, Dubai Trade, RTA, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Arab Financial Services. Each new integration reduces the point of friction that businesses previously had to navigate manually.

The direction is clear: the customer is directly shaping how the journey evolves, ensuring businesses can move from setup to growth with greater ease and confidence.

Digital transformation and AI are central to Dubai’s agenda. How are these technologies being deployed within licencing and data management to move from reactive governance to predictive, intelligence-led regulation?

The direction is set at the highest level. HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of the UAE, and Chairman of The Executive Council of Dubai, has directed all Dubai government entities to integrate services for individuals and businesses into a unified digital ecosystem within one year. This mandate fundamentally reframes how licensing, data management, and investor services must operate. Rather than improving services in silos, the goal is a fully connected infrastructure where systems share data, anticipate needs, and deliver results seamlessly

Within licensing and compliance, this is already taking shape. Structured data from DUL enables regulators to identify inconsistencies and risk patterns at an earlier stage, shifting from reactive inspections to targeted, risk-based oversight. The ambition, consistent with Dubai’s digital transformation strategy, is for government performance to become 100 per cent data-based, supported by an algorithm bank of production-ready machine learning models and secure AI sandbox environments for testing and development.

At the same time, AI is embedded directly into the investor journey. It supports users in selecting the right activities, understanding requirements, and completing processes correctly the first-time reducing errors and delays at the point of interaction.

Policymaking is also becoming increasingly data driven. Real-time insights into business activity and sector performance allow regulations to evolve continuously, rather than through periodic updates. In this way, regulation anticipates challenges instead of merely reacting to them, creating a more agile environment for businesses and a more responsive system of governance.

Looking ahead to the Dubai Economic Agenda (D33), what role will smart regulation and unified data play in driving private sector growth and ensuring Dubai remains globally competitive?

The Dubai Economic Agenda, D33 features ambitious goals: to double the size of the emirate’s economy and further consolidate Dubai’s position as one of the world’s top three economic cities by 2033. Achieving this at scale requires an operating environment that minimizes friction as the economy grows, and that is precisely where smart regulation and unified data become essential.

At the heart of the next phase is the move towards a fully connected system, with unified data as its foundation. Through the DUL and the Dubai Investor Number, we now have a consolidated, real-time view of businesses and investors across the emirate. This enables faster decision-making, more effective policy design, and clearer visibility into where growth is taking place.

Smart regulation builds on this foundation by focusing on outcomes, applying risk-based approaches, and continuously adapting based on real-time market data. This creates a more agile business environment defined by faster processing and decision-making, greater trust through transparency and embedded compliance, and the scalability required to support emerging sectors and new business models.