Originally Posted by WHBM

Ah, the UAE moving on to Direct Debit at last.

When we started working there 2 years ago we came across this remarkable concept called "post dated cheques", where cheques are written out with a date in the future, which you then hold on to and bank on the appropriate date. Businesses seemed to have whole filing systems in their safe to manage these. For example, we rented an apartment which required 1 years rent guaranteed, and rather than a 12-month direct debit/standing order we wrote out for the landlord's agent 12 cheques, dated the 1st of each month for the year ahead. We had to get a modification to our accounting system to handle these.