There are six financial centres in various stages of development in the GCC.

The oldest is the Bahrain Financial Harbour. More recent financial centres are the DIFC (2004), QFC (2005), ADGM (2016) and the still incomplete KAFD in Riyadh.

Each of the oldest and the youngest of these differs from the other three in not having its own Court or separate legal framework, although Bahrain initially addressed the issue of trusts in Bahrain Law No. 23/2006 Regarding the Regulation of Financial Trusts and more recently in Bahrain Royal Decree No. 23/2016 on Trust Funds, has enacted modern banking and company legislation and referred matters which normally would be dealt with by Courts in a trust context to the Bahrain Chamber for the Resolution of Economic, Financial and Investment Disputes.

With the enactment of the Trust Law in 2020 (Federal Decree-Law No. 19/2020), the UAE has established a trust jurisdiction outside its Financial Freezones whose terms clearly envisage the facilitation of trust-based investment vehicles and pension funds.