There has been no shortage of headlines written about the United Arab Emirates’ banking sector since Dubai rattled credit markets the world over in 2009 when it announced it was close to defaulting on $25bn of debt.
Four years ago, Dubai was at the height of an unparalleled economic boom that quickly turned to bust at the onset of the global financial crisis. Years of runaway credit growth had spurred a sizeable real-estate bubble in the Gulf state that quickly burst, causing over-inflated property prices to tumble by as much as 50%, in turn triggering a corporate debt crisis.
