These areas today form the countries of Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates.

To the middle of the 20th century, the Indian rupee was also used as the official currency in the emirates on the eastern Arabian Peninsula, namely Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the Trucial States, and Oman.

The Government of India had complained of gold traffickers in the Gulf region whose base of operations was constantly being broadened, especially in Kuwait, Bahrain and Dubai.

Towards the end of the 1950s, the volume of gold trafficking had become so large that it inevitably precipitated a serious depletion in the foreign cash reserves at the Indian Reserve Bank and was causing economic damage arising directly from the smuggling operations.

Oman continued to use the Gulf rupee until 1970, with the government backing the currency at its old peg to the pound, when it adopted the Omani rial.