For the past 18 months international banks have been making an aggressive foray into the Middle East in an effort to entice the region’s growing number of high-net worth individuals.

The Middle East had about 300,000 high net worth individuals – 53,000 of them in the United Arab Emirates – at the end of 2004 with combined wealth of $1,000bn, according to a report by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch.