Banking in Abu Dhabi
A bird’s eye view
Expanding its financial sector is a stated priority
for Abu Dhabi in the vision document. The UAE’s
financial sector already rivals that of Bahrain, the
Gulf’s first banking hub, with the Qatar Financial
Centre following closely on both their heels.
The UAE will not participate in the forthcoming
GCC single currency. It remains to be seen what the
effects, if any, of this will be.
There was ongoing speculation that the national
currency of the UAE, the Dirham may have been
depegged from the US dollar, but this did not come
to pass.
Currency speculators exacerbated the ill effects of the
financial crisis when they moved funds into the ADX
anticipating the depegging, and then withdrew them
when it did not happen.
The UAE has 24 national banks with 638 branches
between them. In addition to that, there are 28
foreign banks operating in the jurisdiction.
Foreign banks are subject to a legal maximum of
eight branches a piece, with the result that there are
82 foreign bank branches throughout the country.
The financial sector of the UAE is regulated at
federal level by the UAE Central Bank, the authority
on monetary, credit and banking policy.
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