IPOs in the GCC

I attended a presentation today done by a tech solution company out of Dubai that specializes in the automation process of IPO management for banks.

There was a lot of things that in the IPO process that I didn't know and was glad to learn at this session. It also showed the focus that countries such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE were having towards getting their stuff together to make the process of subscribing to a share using channels such as the ATM , net banking and even SMS.

The road map laid out by the speaker envisioned the ability of a GCC citizen to be able to subscribe to shares across borders.Saudi Arabia had recently announced a bylaw that enabled GCC citizens to buy shares in certain companies. Qatar will join the bandwagon soon.

The stumbling blocks currently include Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman , although the Central Bank of Kuwait recently has started looking at ways to go into the online process.

Well time for me to prepare a summary now ..