Ethical Finance GCC 2026

Ethical Finance GCC is the Global Ethical Finance Initiative's Gulf summit, returning to Dubai for its second edition as part of Dubai Future Finance Week. It brings senior bankers, investors, regulators and sustainability leads together for a morning of frank discussion on how the region's financial sector balances resilience against long-term sustainability goals. This year attendance is by invitation, through a register-of-interest process.

Three themes

The 2026 agenda, titled Resilience and Sustainability: One Agenda, Shared Purpose?, is built around three blocks.

• Resilience: the economics of disruption, uncertainty and a fracturing world
• Sustainability: trends and tensions in sustainable finance
• Purpose: rewriting the market agenda, from Smith 250 to Khaldoun 650

Programme highlights

Sessions include a GCC markets review and outlook, a panel on the economics of resilience and strategic trade-offs, a data briefing on sustainable finance, a market panel with bank and ratings-agency leaders, and an introduction to a Tayyib taxonomy for Islamic sustainable finance. The morning ends with lunch and networking, followed by an invite-only ESG Majlis.

Who attends

The summit targets senior representatives from across finance: banks, insurers, asset managers, ratings agencies, regulators and policy makers working in the GCC. Confirmed speakers come from DIFC Authority, HSBC, Emirates NBD, ING, S&P Global Ratings, Bloomberg, Gatehouse Bank, Zurich Insurance and SDG Impact Japan.

Around the summit

GEFI also runs its Sustainable Finance Masterclass at Heriot-Watt University Dubai on 1 to 3 November 2026, in support of the DIFC one million sustainability leaders initiative.

Tickets & passes

• Invitation (register of interest): Invite-only; places offered through a register-of-interest process