AED-Shekel Clearing
The bilateral currency settlement mechanism enabling direct trade between the UAE and Israel without dollar intermediation — the payments rail underneath Abraham Accords commerce.
Before normalization, any Israeli-Emirati transaction required dollar intermediation through a third-country bank. Direct AED-shekel clearing eliminates that friction — reducing settlement time, currency-conversion costs, and counterparty exposure. The mechanism was enabled by correspondent-banking agreements between Israeli and Emirati banks following the Abraham Accords, with Bank Hapoalim and Bank Leumi among the first to establish direct relationships. For Israeli exporters, importers, and cross-border investors, direct clearing is the infrastructure that turns a diplomatic agreement into a payments rail — and it is part of a broader de-dollarization trend in regional trade that the CEPA framework accelerates.