Today, the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) is beginning to feel like a financial centre. It is not Wall Street, and it is not the City of London. But walking around the futuristic Gate building that forms the centrepiece of Dubai’s new finance zone feels a little like walking around London’s Canary Wharf in the early 1990s: very much a work in progress, but bags of potential.
The roll-call of financial institutions that have backed the DIFC speaks volumes. In April, Citigroup became the latest global institution to announce plans to open an office. Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital and Credit Suisse already have dozens of bankers working from the site, while others are waiting in the wings. Standard Chartered has bought an entire building, while HSBC will move in up to 300 bankers as soon as space is available.
