How to track First Abu Dhabi Bank transactions automatically

First Abu Dhabi Bank already texts you every time money moves. PennyWise reads those messages on your phone and builds your spending record from them — no manual entry, no bank login, nothing leaves the device.

What PennyWise reads from your First Abu Dhabi Bank messages
SMS from FAB
Dear Customer, Your payment instructions of AED 250.00 to 5xxx**1xxx has been processed on 10/09/2025 15:28
Read on your phone — nothing sent anywhere
−د.إ250.00
Money out
Merchant
Transfer to 51

A real First Abu Dhabi Bank message format, run through the same parser that ships in the app. Try it on your own message in the parser tool.

How it works

  1. Install PennyWise and grant SMS permission. That permission is the whole product — it is how the app sees your First Abu Dhabi Bank alerts.
  2. PennyWise scans the First Abu Dhabi Bank messages already on your phone and back-fills your transaction history in seconds.
  3. Every new First Abu Dhabi Bank alert is picked up as it arrives and categorised automatically. Budgets and spending trends update on their own.

Why not just use a bank-login app?

Apps that aggregate accounts ask for your net-banking or account credentials and hold your transaction history on their servers. PennyWise asks for neither. It has no account system, makes no network calls to read your money, and its full source is published under AGPL-3.0 so the claim is checkable rather than promised.

Common questions

Does PennyWise work with First Abu Dhabi Bank?

Yes. First Abu Dhabi Bank is one of 157 banks and payment services PennyWise recognises. Transaction alerts from First Abu Dhabi Bank are detected automatically and turned into categorised transactions in AED.

Do I have to type my First Abu Dhabi Bank transactions in by hand?

No. PennyWise reads the transaction SMS First Abu Dhabi Bank already sends you and creates the entry itself — amount, merchant, date, account and running balance where the message includes it.

Does PennyWise need my First Abu Dhabi Bank net-banking login or password?

Never. PennyWise has no login to your bank and no connection to First Abu Dhabi Bank at all. It only reads the SMS already sitting on your phone, which is why it needs SMS permission and nothing else.

Is my First Abu Dhabi Bank transaction data sent anywhere?

No. Parsing runs entirely on your device. There is no server, no account and no analytics on your financial data, and the source code is public so this can be verified.

What if a message from First Abu Dhabi Bank is read incorrectly?

You can paste the message into the parser tool on this site to see exactly what PennyWise extracts, and report it in one click if it is wrong. Parser fixes ship in the next release.

Other banks PennyWise supports in UAE

6 supported in UAE — see them all.

PennyWise is a free, open-source (AGPL-3.0) expense tracker. Bank SMS are parsed entirely on your device — nothing is uploaded, and there is no account to create. Browse all supported banks.