I chaired the first day of the two-day Banking Outlook conference held in Dubai this week. It was an interesting experience and I made quite a few good contacts – I hope you’ll be meeting them in the pages of Banker Middle East and Islamic Business & Finance over the course of the next couple of months.

There were two keynote speakers at the event. The second, Dr Hussain Hamed Hassan, needs no introduction from me. His comments and a substantial part of the discussions over the course of the event were focused on the future prospects specifically for Islamic banking.

The first keynote speaker was HE Dr Omar Bin Sulaiman, speaking in his capacity as Governor of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). He delivered an upbeat message, ““We now are in a position to declare with a great deal of confidence that the region has successfully passed through the worst of the crisis without experiencing any systemic risks. This is a great accomplishment and speaks well about the future of this region and this industry.”

In other words, “Here comes the sun…” but can we really be sure that “Stormy weather” is not going to make a comeback? What was also clear, certainly through the day that I chaired the conference was that liquidity management and risk management remain areas that need to be closely addressed.

There is, I admit, little danger now of systemic risk in the region. In his speech, Dr Omar referenced a study by the DIFC Authority’s Economic unit citing that Gulf countries held “transformative” levels of wealth in their hydrocarbon reserves.

But that of itself does not mean that banks will benefit. Emerging market economies may have been the main drivers of global economic growth, accounting for more than 60 percent of global economic and trade growth over the past six years. But can a plethora of mini-banks really step up to the plate?

“Middle East banks, with their close proximity to Asian markets, are ideally positioned to link up with partners in China, India, Central Asia, and other areas to provide the financing that will fuel the strong growth anticipated in emerging markets for years to come,” Dr Omar said.

That sounds very promising but…

There has been much talk of the problems of banks being too big to fail elsewhere in the world. I just wonder whether there are too many banks in the GCC that are going to be too small to succeed.