(Bloomberg) -- There's a killing to be made trading cheap Qatar riyals, if you know where to find them.
Like most countries in the Gulf region, Qatar maintains a currency peg, keeping the riyal at 3.64 per dollar since 2001. But the crisis that blew up between the Gulf state and a group of Saudi-led countries earlier this year has generated a gap as wide as 7 percent between the rate for riyals available inside the country -- the so-called onshore rate -- and those offshore, offering a theoretical opportunity to profit from from the difference.
Read More: Qatar Says Committed to Official FX Rate After MSCI Proposal
It's theoretical because it's unclear if anyone can actually buy the currency at the discounted rate. So Bloomberg decided to go looking for them in Dubai, the Gulf's commercial and trading hub.
In the span of a few hours, a reporter visited six currency shops and four banks in Dubai Mall, the city's largest mall, and Bur Dubai, home to a 19th century heritage site built by Persian merchants.
The exchange houses in the city's biggest mall had a grand total of 31 riyals on sale, which were offered at a slight premium to the pegged rate, and they would only buy the currency at a steep discount. But a currency shop in Bur Dubai, Al Musabbeh Money Exchange, was willing to buy riyals at the onshore rate of about 3.65 per dollar.
And out of the lenders Bloomberg visited, Emirates Islamic Bank was the only one to have riyals at a discounted rate of 3.79 per dollar.
If anyone bought EIB's entire stash of about 44,900 riyals on sale, and taken a 20-minute taxi ride to Bur Dubai to sell them at the onshore rate, they would have made a profit of about $450, minus charges, according to Bloomberg calculations.
Not bad for a few hours' work.
To contact the reporter on this story: Mohammed Aly Sergie in Doha at msergie@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nayla Razzouk at nrazzouk2@bloomberg.net, Dana El Baltaji, Justin Carrigan
©2017 Bloomberg L.P.
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