Dubai’s status as a financial hub under threat as Iran threatens US and Israeli banks in Gulf region
Standard Chartered logo is seen in this illustration taken January 7, 2026. Photo: Reuters
Citigroup and Standard Chartered have begun evacuating their Dubai offices, telling staff to work from home instead, sources said on Wednesday, as banks step up precautions after Iran threatened Gulf banking interests linked to the United States and Israel.
US financial giant Citigroup told its staff to evacuate offices in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and Dubai’s Oud Metha neighbourhood, a memo sent to employees, which was seen by Reuters, shows, telling them to work from home until further notice.
A spokesperson for the bank said it was continuing to take measures to keep staff safe and had contingency plans in place to ensure business continuity.
Read: Local gold prices rise following gains in global market
Britain’s StanChart has a large presence in the United Arab Emirates, with Dubai now a major financial hub for leading international lenders, including JPMorgan and HSBC, as well as law firms and asset managers.
A spokesperson for StanChart declined to comment.
Separately, HSBC has closed all branches in Qatar until further notice, according to a customer notice, saying the measure was to ensure the safety of staff and customers.
The moves came after a spokesperson for Tehran’s Khatam al-Anbiya military command headquarters said on Wednesday that Iran will target economic and banking interests linked to the US and Israel in the region, after an attack on an Iranian bank.
An administrative building linked to Bank Sepah, one of Iran’s largest public banks and with historical links to the military, was hit overnight in Tehran, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.
Read: US at fault in deadly strike on Iran school that killed dozens of girls, says inquiry
Many staff at foreign and local businesses had already been told by employers to work from home after Iran responded to US and Israeli strikes by firing missiles at targets across the Middle East, causing deaths, damage and travel chaos.
The war in the region has dented Dubai’s sales pitch to international businesses as the region’s most reliable economic hub, prompting concerns of capital flight, layoffs and firms relocating elsewhere, Reuters reported last week.
The creation of the DIFC in 2004 kick-started Dubai’s push to draw financial firms.
By the end of 2025, DIFC hosted more than 290 banks, 102 hedge funds, 500 wealth management firms and 1,289 family-related entities, capping Dubai’s decades-long transition from a modest fishing port into a glittering global financial hub.
StanChart, which makes nearly 6% of its overall income in the UAE according to company filings, has in recent years increasingly based senior executives in the region.
Also Read: Trump says Iran war will end ‘soon’ as there is ‘practically nothing left to target’
The CEO of its investment bank, Roberto Hoornweg, is based in Dubai, a StanChart website shows, making him one of the most senior financiers at a global bank to be based in the region.
Hoornweg declined to comment via a bank spokesperson.
HSBC CEO Georges Elhedery said on Monday that the bank’s “conviction in the GCC’s fundamentals and its future is unchanged”, in some of the first comments from an international bank boss on the growing crisis.