2026-10-14 · 4 min read
CBD Cheque Printing in the UAE — and Why CBD Is Not CBI
Two UAE banks shorten to almost the same three letters, and people pick the wrong one in the software more often than you would think.
CBD and CBI are different banks
Commercial Bank of Dubai is CBD. Commercial Bank International is CBI. They are separate banks with separate cheque stationery, and because the abbreviations differ by one letter, a company holding one often selects the other from a bank list and then wonders why the fields are out.
| Cheque book | Code in the software | Measured size | What to watch |
|---|---|---|---|
| COMMERCIAL BANK INTERNATIONAL (CBI) | CBI-001 | 178 × 97 mm | Measured and published. Unusually tall for its width. |
| COMMERCIAL BANK OF DUBAI (CBD) | not yet published | — | No measured leaf in the library yet. Add it as a custom bank or send a scan. |
Look at the full bank name on your cheque, not the initials. If it reads Commercial Bank International, the CBI cheque printing guide has the layout you need and the cheque image to compare against.
What to do if you bank with Commercial Bank of Dubai
CBD is not in the published library. We measure a cheque book before we publish a layout for it, and no CBD leaf has come through yet — so rather than put a guessed set of positions on the page, here is the honest route.
- Add it yourself. Create a custom bank, enter the width and height of your leaf, and place the date, payee, amount in words and amount in figures on the ruled lines. It saves under its own name and prints like any stored bank from then on.
- Or send one blank leaf. Scan it flat at full size and send it through a ticket. We measure it, publish it as a CBD layout, and it arrives for everyone in the next layout version — including you.
Twenty-four cheque books in the library got there exactly this way.
What printing a cheque actually involves
Whichever of the two banks you are on, the job is the same. The software only prints the text fields — date, payee, amount in words, amount in figures — onto your own bank stationery. Nothing is drawn, nothing is reproduced, and the magnetic band at the foot of the cheque is the bank's own. A plain laser printer that takes one sheet from a manual tray handles it.
The part worth getting right is the amount in words, because that is what a teller reads against the figures. The amount to words converter shows you the exact wording the software will print.
Questions we get asked
Is there a CBD template in the software?
Not a published one yet. CBI is published at 178 x 97 mm; CBD is not, because we have not measured a leaf. You can add CBD as a custom bank yourself, or send a flat scan of a blank leaf and we publish it.
How do I tell CBD and CBI apart on the cheque?
Read the bank name in full on the face of the cheque. Commercial Bank of Dubai and Commercial Bank International print their own names and their own logos. Do not rely on the initials in a dropdown.
Does a wrong bank selection damage anything?
No, it just misplaces the text. Print a test on a photocopy of your cheque before using a real leaf and you will catch it with nothing lost. Every bank in the library shows a cheque image so you can compare before you print.
Check your cheque against the library first
Open the UAE bank cheque library, find the code printed on your cheque, and pick the same name in the software. If your book is not there yet, send us a scan through a ticket and we measure it.
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