Lebanon’s Commercial Banks Assets Rose to $171.27B by October

The consolidated balance sheet of commercial banks jumped by 3.91% year-to-date (y-t-d) to $171.27 by October, equivalent to a 6.62% year-on-year (y-o-y) growth.

Total reserves showed a 13.53% y-t-d increase to form 36.21% of total assets, with a value of $62.15B. Claims on resident private sector, with a share of 25.98% of total assets, posted a 7.20% y-t-d increase to $44.49B. The dollarization rate of the private sector demonstrated a slight decrease from 76.54% in December to 76.19% by October. During this period, foreign currency loans advanced by 4.54% y-t-d to $37.91B, and were outpaced by local currency loans which displayed a y-t-d increase of 9.61%. The Lebanese commercial banks’ assets in non-resident financial sector decreased by 25.93% to $10.34B mainly due the increase in deposits with the Central Bank by 17.50% since the end of 2013, to $61.71B.

In contrast, claims on the public sector recorded a 0.76% y-t-d decrease to $37.38B. In details, the stock of T-bills fell by 0.81% to $37.28B, as outstanding Eurobonds posted a 5.49% y-t-d drop that offset the 3.31% y-t-d increase in T-bills denominated in local currencies.

As for liabilities, resident private sector deposits grew by 4.52% to close at $112.60B. The bulk of these deposits are denominated in foreign currencies, which increased by 4.16%, since year start, to $67.66B, while deposits in local currency grew by 5.07% y-t-d to $44.94B. Non-resident private sector deposits, which increased by 3.36% y-t-d to $29.44B, also witnessed deposits in local currency outgrowing deposits in foreign currencies, with respective y-t-d growths of 11.79% and 2.23% to $3.75B and $25.68B. These changes resulted in the decrease of the dollarization rate of private sector deposits from 66.13% to 65.72% by October 2014.

Worth mentioning that loans-to-deposit ratio of the private sector increased from 34.79% end of 2013 to 35.27% by October.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *