The balance sheet of Lebanon’s commercial banks revealed that total assets grew by 5.62% year-to-date (y-t-d) to reach $215.79B by October 2017 compared to $204.31B in December 2016.
The rise can be attributed to the significant increase of 12.8% y-t-d in Reserves weighing 46.92% of total assets to stand at $101.24B by October 2017. Also, claims on the resident private sector witnessed a rise of 4.25% to reach $53.21B by October 2017 compared to $51.04B by December 2016 as claims denominated in Lebanese Pounds grew by 12.89% since year-start to $17.68B.
However, claims on the public sector and foreign assets witnessed downticks of 3.94% and 4.34% to reach $33.35B and $22.10B respectively by October 2017. In fact, the decrease in Claims on the public sector was driven by lower subscriptions to Eurobonds which slipped by 4.63% since the beginning of the year to stand at $14.67B by October 2017 and by lower subscriptions to treasury bills in Lebanese Pounds which fell by 3.42% to $18.54B by October 2017.
On the liabilities side, Resident private sector deposits, constituting 62.05% of total liabilities, grew by 4.18% y-t-d to reach $133.9B by October 2017 while non-resident private sector deposits increased by 4.53% y-t-d to $35.50B over the same period.
The dollarization ratio for private sector deposits slightly rose from 65.82% in December 2016 to 67.27% in October 2017.
Total Assets of Commercial Banks by October of each Year ($B)
Source: Central Bank of Lebanon