According to the central bank’s (BDL) balance sheet, total assets dropped by 9.75% year-to-date (YTD), to reach $126.89B in May 2019. In fact, the changes in the most accounts can be related to the Central Bank of Lebanon which carried out a netting operation between its “Loans to the local financial sector” and “Financial Sector Deposits”. According to BDL, this offsetting of loans with their corresponding deposits is in accordance with IFRS 7
In details, BDL’s Foreign assets (constituting 28.84% of total assets) declined by 7.74% since December 2018 to reach $36.59B, while the Securities portfolio (constituting 25.77% of total assets) recorded a 6.04% YTD uptick to settle at $32.70B over the same period. In their turn, Loans to the local financial sector (11.96% of total assets) witnessed a drop by 54.86% to $15.17B in May 2019. As for Gold assets (9.41% of total assets), they recorded an increase of 1.47% YTD, to stand at $11.94B.
On the liabilities side, Financial Sector Deposits (82.75% of BDL’s total liabilities) decreased by 12.33% YTD to reach $105B in May 2019. As for Public sector deposits, (2.98% of total liabilities), they declined by 24.90% YTD to $3.77B in May 2019.
Yearly levels of BDL’s Total Assets in May ($B)
Source: BDL