Citi, StanChart evacuate Dubai offices, HSBC closes Qatar branches as fears grow

By Hadeel Al Sayegh and Lawrence White

DUBAI/LONDON, March ‌11 (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 U.S. and Israel.

U.S. 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.

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 U.S. 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.

Many staff at foreign and local businesses had already been told by employers ​to work from home after Iran responded to U.S. and Israeli strikes by ‌firing missiles at targets across the Middle East, causing deaths, damage and travel chaos.

CONFLICT DENTING DUBAI'S SAFE-HAVEN STATUS

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 kickstarted 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.

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 (Gulf Cooperation Council) fundamentals and its future is unchanged", in some of the first comments from an international bank boss on the growing crisis.

"The safety ‌of our colleagues and customers remain our top priority," HSBC said in a statement on Wednesday in relation to its Dubai-based staff.

A spokesperson for JPMorgan declined ⁠to comment.

At Goldman Sachs, employees across the region are working ‌from home and following local official instructions, ​a person with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

(Reporting by Hadeel Al Sayegh, Timour Azhari and Lawrence White, additional reporting by Tatiana Bautzer in New York. Writing by Tommy Reggiori Wilkes; Editing by Elisa Martinuzzi, Anousha Sakoui ‌and Alexander Smith)

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