Standard Chartered evacuates staff from offices in Dubai,  sources say

By Hadeel Al Sayegh and Lawrence White

DUBAI/LONDON, March 11 (Reuters) - Standard Chartered STAN.L has begun evacuating staff from offices in Dubai and told them to work from home, two sources said on Wednesday, as lenders step up precautionary measures following an Iranian warning that Tehran will target U.S. and Israeli banks in the region.

British bank Standard Chartered has a large presence in the United Arab Emirates, with Dubai now a large financial hub for leading international banks including JPMorgan JPM.N and HSBC HSBA.L, as well as law firms and asset managers.

Iran will target economic and banking ​interests linked to the U.S. ‌and Israel in the region, after an attack on an Iranian bank, a ​spokesperson for Tehran's Khatam al-Anbiya military command headquarters said ​on Wednesday.

Many staff at foreign and local businesses had been told by their employers to work from home following U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, which prompted Tehran to fire missiles at targets across the Middle East, causing damage and deaths across the Gulf and travel chaos.

The creation of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) in 2004 kickstarted Dubai's push to draw financial firms. By the end of 2025, DIFC hosted more than 290 banks, 102 hedge funds, 500 wealth management firms and 1,289 family-related entities.

Like many international lenders such as StanChart, HSBC has also sought to expand across the Gulf, and has highlighted the region as key to its wider group strategy of capitalising on inter-regional global deal and capital flows to boost the bank's overall profitability.

Georges Elhedery, HSBC's CEO, said on Monday that the bank's "conviction in the GCC's (Gulf Cooperation Council) fundamentals and its future is unchanged", in some of the first comments from an international bank boss on the growing crisis.

"The safety of our colleagues and customers remain our top priority," HSBC said in a statement on Wednesday. "We are actively following government guidelines alongside our internal plans to manage working arrangements. We are communicating safety advice with colleagues as appropriate."

Separately, HSBC closed all branches in Qatar until further notice, according to a customer notice.

A spokesperson for JPMorgan declined to comment.