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Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) said on 3 October that its Smart Bank Guarantee System had reduced transaction turnaround time by 95% and reliance on physical guarantees by 74%. Managing director and chief executive Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer said the platform processes about 2,500 guarantees annually, with a combined value of around AED 1 billion.
The process covers receipt, review, updates and follow-up. WAM reported that DEWA replaced paper-based handling and manual tracking with digital records and real-time status updates. The system uses robotic-process-automation validation, SWIFT authentication and audit trails linked to SAP; the release did not attribute the guarantee checks themselves to an AI model.
For a utility, faster guarantee handling can shorten a supplier or project contractor’s administrative wait and reduce paper custody. The reported 74% decline concerns reliance on physical guarantees, not a stated reduction in guarantee value or supplier credit exposure. DEWA did not publish a baseline, sample period, cost saving or independent audit of either percentage, so the figures remain company-reported operational measures.
Al Tayer separately said DEWA is developing an AI-driven integrated operational model; that is a company-stated plan and was not presented as an outcome of the guarantee workflow. The annual AED 1 billion value is the amount of guarantees processed, not cash spent or a saving. To assess financial impact, later disclosures would need to state processing costs, approval times, guarantee expiry and release rates, and how digital authentication handles disputes or outages. The announcement describes a workflow change, not a measured improvement in electricity supply or grid reliability.