Oman and Turkey are jockeying to claim a stake in the region’s financial center business

Istanbul and Muscat are each trying to claim a piece of the region’s financial center business, but only Istanbul is going after a part of it that Dubai and Abu Dhabi haven’t already taken. Turkey’s June overhaul of its Financial Center Law targets the work that sits behind a regional front office: Group treasury, shared services, and regional management. Oman is building a common-law enclave to compete with DIFC and ADGM directly for licensed banks and funds.

The front office is spoken for: Dubai and Abu Dhabi have the licensed business, and they grew right through the war. DIFC passed 10k active firms in 1H 2026, up 30% y-o-y, 1.1k of them regulated financial firms, the center says. At ADGM, assets under management jumped 54% and the number of fund managers rose 23% to 190 over the same period, with Man Group and Capital Group among the newcomers. September’s Global Financial Centres Index kept Dubai in the top 10 and lifted Abu Dhabi eight places to 13th, as we previously reported.

Riyadh has already drawn in a share of what remains. Since January 2024, any company chasing government contracts in the Kingdom has needed a regional HQ there, and more than 750 have signed up — Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas among them this year. What is left is the work that faces away from Saudi Arabia: treasury, shared services, and regional management for groups spanning Turkey, Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. That’s what Istanbul is aiming at.

Where Riyadh compels, Istanbul pays: Turkey’s Law No. 7582, in force since 4 June, creates a qualified service center status for groups active in at least three countries whose center earns 80% of its revenue from foreign affiliates. Qualifying income gets a 95% corporate tax deduction for 20 tax periods, rising to 100% if the center also holds an Istanbul Financial Center participant certificate — plus a wage exemption of up to five times the gross minimum wage per employee, tax advisers note.

Broadening, not giving up: Hasan Dincer, a finance professor speaking in a personal capacity, tells EnterpriseAM that this isn’t tantamount to Turkey conceding the top end. “I would not describe the recent changes as Turkey giving up the front-office competition with Dubai or Abu Dhabi. I see them more as an effort to broaden Istanbul’s role,” he says. He expects regional finance operations, reporting, planning, shared services, and some treasury work to move first. And because Istanbul would serve groups running Turkey, Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia, he sees “more room for complementarity than a direct winner-takes-all competition” with Riyadh.

But the line is blurry: The front office/back office split is less tidy than it looks. “The distinction is between where work is done and where judgement is exercised,” Abdalla Elsayed, an economic researcher at City St George’s, University of London, tells EnterpriseAM. A group treasurer “may decide how bns are borrowed, invested or hedged,” he says, so Istanbul gains real clout only if its teams manage funding and risk rather than process instructions. Nor does Dubai’s head-start shut the door. Nine in 10 DIFC firms aren’t regulated financial companies, which Elsayed says is a register, not a full market. Istanbul, he says, “can compete for a multinational’s next treasury mandate.”

The harder question is the TRY: Treasurers weighing Istanbul would be holding group funds in an economy where annual inflation was still running at 29.8% in October, according to TurkStat. “Incentives are only one part of the decision,” Dincer says, and he expects companies “to move gradually rather than make very large treasury decisions immediately.” The tax case also thins out for big groups. Turkey’s 15% domestic top-up tax has applied since 2024 to groups with revenue above EUR 750 mn, clawing back much of a 100% deduction. Groups above that threshold would mostly be buying the wage exemption.

Interest isn’t quite the same as arrival: Istanbul has had no shortage of interest. Istanbul Financial Center CEO Ahmet Ihsan Erdem told Reuters in April that he had met more than 40 companies in a single month, mostly from East Asia and the Gulf, and expected to lift occupancy from under half to 75% — some 40k workers — by the end of December. Elsayed calls that “evidence of interest, not proof that firms have relocated decision-making.”

Oman is starting from scratch and faces a steeper climb: IFC Oman was set up by royal decree in January as an English common-law jurisdiction with its own regulator, courts, and tax holidays of up to 50 years. It first aimed to be fully operational this year. It now plans to register companies before year-end and license them in 2027, with the founding laws and rulebooks issued just two days ago. Even the tax pitch has limits: Oman’s own 15% top-up tax on large multinationals means the 50-year holiday matters mainly to firms below the EUR 750 mn threshold.

A law isn’t a market: “Muscat needs a reason for a firm to place a business mandate there, not merely a reason to incorporate,” Elsayed says. Copying the DIFC model is a good start, he adds, but “Dubai’s success took years of building relationships, attracting talent and creating business opportunities. That cannot be copied through legislation alone.” He would start with a few focused businesses: trade finance, infrastructure, and strategies linking Oman with South Asia and East Africa. Oman does have something to sell — all three ratings agencies now rate it investment grade.

Our take: Istanbul is going after the part of the market still open to it, and its constraint is macro credibility, rather than law. Oman is competing for business the UAE won two decades ago, and its realistic prize is a corridor niche, rather than DIFC’s client list. Elsayed sums up the test for both: “Contingency can explain why a firm arrives; useful, profitable work must explain why it stays.”

Three dates fall due shortly. The Istanbul Financial Center’s 75% occupancy target falls due at end-December. The Industry and Technology Ministry’s QSC procedures will decide when applications can actually start. And IFC Oman’s registry is due to open before year-end, with the first licenses in 2027. The question to put to every arrival, Elsayed says: “What can this team decide now that it could not decide a year ago?”