Macro-economic shifts, new technologies and evolving perceptions of value are altering what high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) – especially younger ones – look for in their portfolios and wealth managers. As established markets scramble to adapt to this reality, high-growth regions like the Gulf have an opportunity to capture a new wave of capital.
This wave has already begun to descend on our shores, with cities like Abu Dhabi and Dubai among the most popular in the world for affluent individuals. A report this year by Henley and Partners shows Dubai now has more than 81,000 millionaires, 237 centimillionaires and 20 billionaires. Meanwhile, the Julius Baer Global Wealth and Lifestyle Report 2025 describes the emirate as a “firm challenger” to the traditional bastions of wealth amid rising property prices.
There are many reasons for the GCC’s increasing popularity among HNWIs. Traditional pull factors like low taxation and high security are still powerful draws. But there is another undercurrent lifting the region’s wealth management firms and it’s linked to something money can’t buy – an appetite for “the new”.
Indeed, the Gulf has become a region of early adopters with a youthful, tech-savvy population who embrace change.
It is perhaps unsurprising then to know that HNWIs in the Middle East are more prepared than their global peers for wealth managers to use artificial intelligence – not only for processing functions but for making investment decisions. EY’s 2025 Global Wealth report shows that 89 per cent of clients are already aware that their wealth managers may be using AI – more than any other region. In fact, 71 per cent in the region expect their wealth managers to use AI compared to 60 per cent globally.
This state-of-readiness among clients is partly down to a society that is already using AI widely in daily life and work. Interestingly, trust in AI tends to be higher in high-growth markets, according to the Global Wealth report. Ultimately, trust is heavily dependent on how data is used and protected.
GCC countries were among the first to establish ethical frameworks to govern data usage and enable financial companies to adopt AI. For instance, DIFC revised Data Protection Regulations in September 2023 – shortly after the global GenAI boom – with Regulation 10 specifically regulating autonomous systems. In doing so, the government instilled AI confidence in both wealth managers and clients early on.
It’s a similar story across the GCC with Boston Consulting Group’s AI Maturity Matrix ranking both the UAE and Saudi Arabia as “AI Contenders”, reflecting their state-of-readiness to adopt AI on an advanced level. Meanwhile, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar are classified as “AI Practitioners”, indicating strong foundational progress towards AI-readiness.
Aside from their confidence in AI-enabled investing, HNWIs in the Middle East are also more open to alternative investments. Sixty-eight per cent of clients in the region already use alternative products compared with just 51 per cent globally. But it’s not just real estate, private equity and infrastructure that are attracting private capital in the Gulf. Cryptocurrencies are big business with many younger clients opting for digital assets.
Globally, regulatory complexity has made crypto a problematic choice. But in the GCC, governments have brought clarity with their unambiguous stance on digital assets. In March, Abu Dhabi-based MGX invested $2 billion in Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange, demonstrating the level of government backing for digital finance. And earlier, in 2022, Dubai launched the world’s first regulator dedicated exclusively to virtual assets, the Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority.
Crypto is just one of several emerging categories in a region where asset classes seem to crop up faster than anywhere else. The pace and scale of the GCC’s economic transformations are producing unprecedented opportunities for wealthy individuals as entire new industries appear with the backing of some of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds.
For instance, Oman is establishing itself as a logistics hub with significant investments in port infrastructure. Today, its logistics sector is worth about $6 billion; by 2040, it is targeting $93 billion. This is just one example of defensive investment opportunities springing up all over the region as governments create the conditions for renewables, health care, education and technology to thrive.
The combination of these booming sectors and high-growth economies is a recipe for attracting investment. But when it comes to private wealth, the GCC has something few other regions have. It has highly agile and forward-looking regulatory environments and ultimately an investor base that is unafraid of disruption.
Here, capital may be prudent, but it is also pioneering. And ultimately, this is the spirit in which the future of private wealth will be shaped.
Secret Nation: The Hidden Armenians of Turkey
Avedis Hadjian, (IB Tauris)
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
Sheikh Zayed's poem
When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.
Your love is ruling over my heart
Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it
Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home
You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness
Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins
You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge
You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm
Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you
You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it
Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by.
More from our neighbourhood series:
The biog
Mission to Seafarers is one of the largest port-based welfare operators in the world.
It provided services to around 200 ports across 50 countries.
They also provide port chaplains to help them deliver professional welfare services.
The biog
Favourite book: Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Favourite holiday destination: Spain
Favourite film: Bohemian Rhapsody
Favourite place to visit in the UAE: The beach or Satwa
Children: Stepdaughter Tyler 27, daughter Quito 22 and son Dali 19
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Trump v Khan
2016: Feud begins after Khan criticised Trump’s proposed Muslim travel ban to US
2017: Trump criticises Khan’s ‘no reason to be alarmed’ response to London Bridge terror attacks
2019: Trump calls Khan a “stone cold loser” before first state visit
2019: Trump tweets about “Khan’s Londonistan”, calling him “a national disgrace”
2022: Khan’s office attributes rise in Islamophobic abuse against the major to hostility stoked during Trump’s presidency
July 2025 During a golfing trip to Scotland, Trump calls Khan “a nasty person”
Sept 2025 Trump blames Khan for London’s “stabbings and the dirt and the filth”.
Dec 2025 Trump suggests migrants got Khan elected, calls him a “horrible, vicious, disgusting mayor”
THE LOWDOWN
Photograph
Rating: 4/5
Produced by: Poetic License Motion Pictures; RSVP Movies
Director: Ritesh Batra
Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Sanya Malhotra, Farrukh Jaffar, Deepak Chauhan, Vijay Raaz
TICKETS
Tickets start at Dh100 for adults, while children can enter free on the opening day. For more information, visit www.mubadalawtc.com.
Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
Padmaavat
Director: Sanjay Leela Bhansali
Starring: Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone, Shahid Kapoor, Jim Sarbh
3.5/5
COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EQureos%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EUAE%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ELaunch%20year%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2021%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20employees%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E33%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESoftware%20and%20technology%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E%243%20million%0D%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The specs: Audi e-tron
Price, base: From Dh325,000 (estimate)
Engine: Twin electric motors and 95kWh battery pack
Transmission: Single-speed auto
Power: 408hp
Torque: 664Nm
Range: 400 kilometres
Results:
6.30pm: Maiden Dh165,000 2,000m - Winner: Powderhouse, Sam Hitchcott (jockey), Doug Watson (trainer)
7.05pm: Handicap Dh165,000 2,200m - Winner: Heraldic, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar
7.40pm: Conditions Dh240,000 1,600m - Winner: Walking Thunder, Connor Beasley, Ahmed bin Harmash
8.15pm: Handicap Dh190,000 2,000m - Winner: Key Bid, Fernando Jara, Ali Rashid Al Raihe
8.50pm: The Garhoud Sprint Listed Dh265,000 1,200m - Winner: Drafted, Sam Hitchcott, Doug Watson
9.25pm: Handicap Dh170,000 1,600m - Winner: Cachao, Tadhg O’Shea, Satish Seemar
10pm: Handicap Dh190,000 1,400m - Winner: Rodaini, Connor Beasley, Ahmed bin Harmash
If you go...
Fly from Dubai or Abu Dhabi to Chiang Mai in Thailand, via Bangkok, before taking a five-hour bus ride across the Laos border to Huay Xai. The land border crossing at Huay Xai is a well-trodden route, meaning entry is swift, though travellers should be aware of visa requirements for both countries.
Flights from Dubai start at Dh4,000 return with Emirates, while Etihad flights from Abu Dhabi start at Dh2,000. Local buses can be booked in Chiang Mai from around Dh50
Other must-tries
Tomato and walnut salad
A lesson in simple, seasonal eating. Wedges of tomato, chunks of cucumber, thinly sliced red onion, coriander or parsley leaves, and perhaps some fresh dill are drizzled with a crushed walnut and garlic dressing. Do consider yourself warned: if you eat this salad in Georgia during the summer months, the tomatoes will be so ripe and flavourful that every tomato you eat from that day forth will taste lacklustre in comparison.
Badrijani nigvzit
A delicious vegetarian snack or starter. It consists of thinly sliced, fried then cooled aubergine smothered with a thick and creamy walnut sauce and folded or rolled. Take note, even though it seems like you should be able to pick these morsels up with your hands, they’re not as durable as they look. A knife and fork is the way to go.
Pkhali
This healthy little dish (a nice antidote to the khachapuri) is usually made with steamed then chopped cabbage, spinach, beetroot or green beans, combined with walnuts, garlic and herbs to make a vegetable pâté or paste. The mix is then often formed into rounds, chilled in the fridge and topped with pomegranate seeds before being served.
Classification of skills
A worker is categorised as skilled by the MOHRE based on nine levels given in the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO) issued by the International Labour Organisation.
A skilled worker would be someone at a professional level (levels 1 – 5) which includes managers, professionals, technicians and associate professionals, clerical support workers, and service and sales workers.
The worker must also have an attested educational certificate higher than secondary or an equivalent certification, and earn a monthly salary of at least Dh4,000.
'The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure'
Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, Penguin Randomhouse
MATCH INFO
First Test at Barbados
West Indies won by 381 runs
Second Test at Antigua
West Indies won by 10 wickets
Third Test at St Lucia
February 9-13
SPEC%20SHEET
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How to vote in the UAE
1) Download your ballot https://www.fvap.gov/
2) Take it to the US Embassy
3) Deadline is October 15
4) The embassy will ensure all ballots reach the US in time for the November 3 poll
The biog
Born: Kuwait in 1986
Family: She is the youngest of seven siblings
Time in the UAE: 10 years
Hobbies: audiobooks and fitness: she works out every day, enjoying kickboxing and basketball
Zayed Sustainability Prize
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
FROM%20THE%20ASHES
%3Cp%3EDirector%3A%20Khalid%20Fahad%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3EStarring%3A%20Shaima%20Al%20Tayeb%2C%20Wafa%20Muhamad%2C%20Hamss%20Bandar%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3ERating%3A%203%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Brief scores:
Manchester City 2
Gundogan 27', De Bruyne 85'
Crystal Palace 3
Schlupp 33', Townsend 35', Milivojevic 51' (pen)
Man of the Match: Andros Townsend (Crystal Palace)
