Oil and the internationalization of Arab banks : OIES Research Paper F6

The major increases in oil prices during the 1970s caused many changes in the socio-economic map of the Middle East, including substantially increased financial flows to and from the oil economies. In a short time, the oil exporters became also capital exporters. Some of the financial institutions managing these flows had to establish a presence i n international financial centres in a rather short period. In many ways the 1970s will be seen in banking and finance circles as the decade of internationalization of Arab banks, just as the 1960s was the decade of international ization of American banks