Rob Frost features in the Securities Finance Times Middle East Annual, making the case for why the Middle East represents one of the most significant opportunities in securities finance today and why firms that act now will define the competitive landscape for years to come.

GCC debt capital markets have reached $1.2 trillion outstanding, up 14% year-on-year, with Saudi Arabia's lendable inventory surging 190% YoY from $3.1B to $8.9B. Firms building in the region today have a genuine structural edge, able to deploy best-in-class, real-time infrastructure without the legacy complexity that weighs on global incumbents.

In the article, Rob maps the four converging trends reshaping how securities finance operations are built across trading, post-trade, collateral, and reporting. He also details the practical, modular path from first deployment to a fully connected lifecycle, and why the window is time-limited: global incumbents are actively working through their technical debt, closing the gap between where they are and where a newly built Middle Eastern operation could start today.