Aldar Properties and Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) have jointly launched a pair of co-branded covered cards linked to Aldar’s Darna digital loyalty programme, deepening the intersection of property, retail and Islamic banking in Abu Dhabi’s consumer market.
The two products, the ADIB Aldar Visa Infinite and the ADIB Aldar Visa Platinum Covered Cards, were issued on 21 October 2026. Both sit inside the Live Aldar app ecosystem, allowing cardholders to earn, track and redeem Darna Points across Aldar’s retail, hospitality, education and residential portfolio.
The product structure
The reward tiers are graduated. Cardholders earn up to 10% value back in Darna Points on eligible spending at participating Aldar malls, hotels, golf courses, restaurants and entertainment venues. Spending on Aldar property purchases and Aldar Education attracts up to 1.5%, while eligible international transactions earn up to 2%. Welcome bonuses of up to 20,000 Darna Points, equivalent to AED 1,000, are offered on sign-up, subject to card tier and qualifying conditions.
Additional benefits include complimentary Darna Gold or Platinum status depending on tier, access to more than 1,000 airport lounges worldwide, complimentary valet parking up to four times per month at selected UAE locations, and an annual fee waiver from the second year onwards for cardholders who meet defined spend thresholds: AED 30,000 in foreign currency or AED 75,000 in total transactions.
Faisal Falaknaz, group chief financial and sustainability officer at Aldar, said the partnership extends rewards to eligible property spend, “creating meaningful value around one of our customers’ most significant purchases.” Amit Malhotra, global head of retail banking at ADIB, framed the proposition as embedding banking more deeply into customers’ daily lives beyond traditional service relationships.
The cards are Sharia-compliant covered structures rather than conventional credit products, consistent with ADIB’s Islamic banking model. ADIB reported total assets of AED 304 billion as of June 2026, giving the partnership institutional weight within the UAE’s Islamic finance sector.
Market context and regulatory landscape
The co-branded card space in the Gulf has grown steadily as banks seek to deepen primary-account relationships and retailers look to translate loyalty programmes into payment data. The Aldar-ADIB structure is notable for spanning property purchasing alongside everyday retail, a combination that is less common than pure lifestyle or travel reward cards. Rewarding property transactions at the card level blurs the boundary between mortgage product and payment card, a wrinkle that sits within the DFSA and CBUAE regulatory perimeter for consumer credit and Islamic finance structures.
Visa’s involvement as the network rail gives the product global acceptance infrastructure, but the commercial logic is primarily domestic. Abu Dhabi’s real estate market has remained buoyant through 2025 and into 2026, driven by continued government investment and population growth, which provides a large addressable base for property-linked financial products.
Several UAE banks and property groups have experimented with similar closed-loop loyalty integrations, but the scale of Aldar’s landbank, which spans 76 million square metres, and the breadth of the Live Aldar app ecosystem give this proposition a wider earn-and-redeem surface than most comparable products in the region.
The near-term test for the partnership will be activation rates and whether the Live Aldar app can sustain engagement outside of property transaction moments. Loyalty programmes anchored to infrequent, high-value purchases, such as property, tend to require a rich everyday-spend layer to maintain cardholder relevance, which the retail and hospitality reward tiers are designed to provide.
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