Wages Protection System (WPS)| Meaning and Definition

What is WPS?

WPS (Wage Protection System) is an electronic salary transfer system implemented by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MOHRE) to ensure that employees receive their salaries on time and as per their employment contracts.

Under the WPS system, all employers in the UAE are required to transfer their employees’ salaries through a registered bank or financial institution approved by the central bank of UAE to issue services. This system applies to all companies operating in the UAE, whether they are private sector companies or government entities.

The WPS system was introduced to protect employees from salary delays, enhance transparency in worker’s wages, and ensure that they are paid their dues as per their employment contracts. The system also allows the MOHRE to monitor the payment of salaries to employees and to ensure that employers comply with UAE labor laws and regulations.

Benefits of Wage Protection System

• Safeguard the employee’s interests and provides guarantees of timely salaries.
• Seamless system that helps reduce time and effort to pay due salaries.
• Strengthen the job security for the employees working in the private sector.
• Offers a transparent payment system.
• Protects the rights of both employees and employers
• Reduces the labor law disputes associated with salaries.

The registration process for WPS 

If you are an employer in the UAE, it is mandatory for you to be on the WPS. The registration process for WPS is quite simple. These are the list of documents required for registering in the Wage protection system through the MOHRE website. 

• Corporate bank account details.
• Employee’s bank account or agent details.
• List of employees with bank account details.
• The specific date on which the salaries need to be paid.  
• MOHRE registration details.  

WPS Payment Process

Once the employer has successfully created a WPS account and listed all the required details, the next step is to process the payment through WPS. These are the following steps in the WPS payment process.

Step 1- The company needs to open a UAE-based bank account or financial institution to process the salaries.
Step 2- The WPS agreement is signed between the company and the bank agent.
Step 3- The company issues the instructions to transfer salaries to banks or financial institutions.
Step 4- The bank notifies about the wages protection system in the UAE and sends employee details through the salaries information file (SFI) to the UAE central bank.
Step 5 – The UAE central bank then sends the final details to the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MOHRE) for final verification.
Step 6- Once the verification is completed, the MOHRE issues authorization to the employer’s bank or agent to process the employee’s wages.