March of the Investment banks...

On the occasion of its 150th anniversary, Credit Suisse announced its plan to enter the Saudi Arabia.CS will be collaborating with Olayan group and a few other investors to provide securities brokerage services.Interestingly enough, Saudi seems to be the first country where they intend to establish footprint. CS will be carrying out its services in accordance with Sharia regulations.

Middle east is going through a change, particularly in the conservative states; the open door policy to foreign investment banks is slowly but certainly happening. Countries like Kuwait have signed MoUs that would allow mid and top tier i-banks such as HSBC , Citigroup etc to establish portfolio management/asset management services.Local banks arent taking this lightly and have approached the government to provide them with guarantee of not being robbed of their monopoly.

Who does this really affect? Local companies ofcourse. They probably get the wider choice of world experience.For these companies, its a question of choosing between trusted(out of no choice) local banks versus the ones that might offer them incentives never thought of(or applied) before.On the individual level however, Me thinks the private investors are ALREADY working with the Goldman Sachs & the Morgan Stanleys of the world.