Banking services are not so efficient or tech enabled in UAE (don't know Germany) but have made decent progress in terms of digital and mobile in last few years. I used ENBD and - aside from the recent outage during a system upgrade - is pretty solid with wide branch and atm coverage. Good app on which you can do the vast majority of your banking transactions, and offers soft token and Face ID. It's well connected with all the local services (utilities, phone, speeding tickets (!) etc) for easy online payments. Look into the "Priority Banking" option, which is a step up from the basic accounts.

Some colleagues use HSBC which quite a few expats like for its multi-country offerings but has mixed reviews on local offerings and complaints about service (like paying your HSBC CC from your HSBC bank account isn't instantaneous).

For Credit Cards with Skywards points, would shop around for best intro offers (people usually end up with Citi or ENBD credit cards). Could also be one way to get EK status if interested.