Wealthy women in the Gulf have an increasing appetite for sophisticated investment products – as illustrated by the launch of another female-only asset manager last week. But in the male-dominated banking world, is enough being done to develop a pipeline of female talent?

Al Jaber Holdings, a women-only investment and asset manager, was given the go-ahead last week by the UAE Central bank and will attempt to tap into the growing pool of female wealth in the region.

Fatima Al Jaber, CEO of the company, reckons there’s more than $6trillion in personal wealth within the six GCC countries, $350bn of which is managed by nearly 50,000 women.

“There are some key factors that contributed to the accumulation of this wealth and the expansion of the women’s role in investment and economic activities. They include the oil and economic boom in the region, the encouragement of women to enter new business,” she says.

Targeting the GCC’s super-rich women is not a new phenomenon, though. Nicola Horlick’s Bramdiva launched in the Gulf in 2007, as did Forsa (part of Dubai World), both of which are run by women for women focusing on investments.

But with just a handful of women in senior positions in the Gulf financial sector, if more firms like this are to pop up it’s questionable whether there’s enough female managerial expertise to run them.

Noha El Shazly, country managing partner for UAE, Egypt and Lebanon at headhunters Gulf Bankers, says: “It’s incredibly difficult to find women for senior wealth management positions. Lower down the ranks, there’s a decent supply of female talent, but it’s still comparatively limited and they are sought after, so can therefore often command a premium.”

Craig Pointon, managing director – Middle East at headhunters Carmichael Fisher, agrees: “Historically, women private bankers have done well in the Middle East market,” he says. “However, the current climate has put all investors on the back foot and I believe it will take a long time for the confidence to return in order to move ladies’ ‘retail banking’ to ‘wealth management’ in the traditional sense.”

The Economist Intelligence Unit estimates that women make up a third of employees in the UAE banking sector, but didn’t go into deals about which positions they occupy.

However, one headhunter says there’s still a dearth of female talent locally.

“Banks are keen to have a certain quota of women, but often can’t find sufficient numbers in the GCC,” she says. “Often they’ll extend the search to areas like Pakistan.”