According to Lebanon’s commercial banks’ balance sheet, total assets increased 6.50% year-to-date (y-t-d) and 9.23% annually to $198.07B by September 2016.
On a year-to-date basis, reserves increased by 20.44% to $85.50B due to a growth of 20.54% in deposits with central bank. Moreover, claims on resident private sector rose 4.47% to $50.19B due to the 9.57% incline in claims in Lebanese Pounds to $14.95B.
Nevertheless, both claims on public sector and foreign assets observed respective drops of 6.56% and 9.12% by September 2016. The main component behind the decline in foreign assets was claims on non-resident financial sector that dropped 21.26% y-t-d to $9.10B, while the decrease in claims on public sector, it is mainly attributed to the lower subscription to treasury bills in LBP that dropped by 9.74% since year-start to $18.11B.
As for the liabilities, the rise was caused by the 4.51% rise in resident private sector deposits, which makes up two-thirds of total liabilities to reach $125.12B by September 2016.
Moreover, the dollarization ratio for private sector loans decreased from 74.83% in December 2015 to 73.61% in September 2016, and the dollarization ratio for private sector deposits slightly rose from 64.88% in December 2015 to 64.98% in September 2016.
Commercial Banks’ Total assets by September (in Billions $)
Source: BDL