19% Rise in Commercial Banks’ Deposits with Central Bank by August due to the BDL Swap

According to Lebanon’s commercial banks’ balance sheet, total assets rose 5.26% year-to-date (y-t-d) and 7.79% y-o-y, to stand at $195.77B by August 2016.

As a result of the BDL swap with the local banks, which consisted of the BDL buying back T-bills denominated in Lira at a premium discount against local bank’s subscription to financial instruments denominated in dollars and their commitment to place foreign currency deposits at BDL, the balance sheet revealed an 18.89% y-t-d rise in deposits with the central bank to reach $83.86B and a 14.42% drop in the banks’ holdings of  treasury bills in LBP to stand at $20.06B.

Moreover, claims on the resident private sector (25.52% of total assets) rose 3.98% to $49.95B following the 7.94% growth in claims in Lebanese Pounds to $14.73B.  However, foreign assets declined by 11.08% by August 2016. The main reason behind this fall was the claims on non-resident financial sector that plunged 26.58% y-t-d to $8.48B.

On the liabilities side, resident private sector deposits, constituting more than two-thirds of total liabilities, grew 3.72% to $124.18B in August 2016.

The dollarization ratio for private sector loans dropped from 74.83% in December 2015 to 73.87% in August 2016, and the dollarization ratio for private sector deposits slightly fell from 64.88% in December 2015 to 64.76% in August 2016.

Commercial Banks’ Total assets by August (in Billions $)

19% Rise in Commercial Banks’ Deposits with Central Bank by August due to the BDL Swap

Source: BDL

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