When Declan Hegarty, head of debt origination at HSBC in the Middle East, first moved to the Gulf region a few years ago, there was only one other investment banker at the group who was working with him in the field of Islamic finance.

For while the group has been one of the first Western banks to create an Islamic business – known as HSBC Amanah – in the late 1990s and early part of this decade, this activity was primarily focused on products that were similar to deposit accounts and loans, rather than the type of capital markets instruments typically handed by investment bankers.