Should Dubai-based bankers be packing their bags and heading to Abu Dhabi?

If Abu Dhabi ends up bailing out Dubai World, it's likely to come with some punitive conditions, and the oil-rich emirate's financial ambitions have led some to speculate that it wants to snatch the DIFC's crown. Nonetheless, any power switch is unlikely to happen in the near-term.

"I'm confident we'll see some kind of Abu Dhabi intervention so this is more of a short-term thing," analyst Haissam Arabi said of the furore around Dubai World's debt restructuring.

But, if this happens, are we likely to see financial services professionals migrate to Dubai's oil-rich neighbour? As Eckhart Woertz, an economist at the Gulf Research Centre said: "Abu Dhabi has financial ambitions of its own. Dubai will have to focus on its core competencies. There is terrible damage to its ambitions in the financial field from how it handled this."

The DIFC has long been the GCC's financial hub, with the majority of international financial services firms basing themselves there. However, Abu Dhabi is in the process of building a new financial centre just off the city's coast in Sowwah Island, which is due for completion in 2014.

But one financial services headhunter in Dubai, says opportunities in Abu Dhabi are currently relatively scarce.

"Obviously, the sovereign wealth funds offer opportunities, but the vast majority of investment bankers stick to the DIFC," he says. "I suspect this is unlikely to change in the short-term."

Similarly, Ian Hay Davison, former chief of the Dubai Financial Services Authority, believes that Dubai will continue to dominate locally, but its global ambitions have been dented.

"Dubai will keep its role as a regional centre of services in the Middle East, but has come very far from its goal of becoming a financial centre like New York," he said.