Commercial Banks’ Assets Climbed to $172.21B by November 2014

The consolidated balance sheet of Lebanon’s commercial banks revealed a 4.48% year-to-date (y-t-d) increase in assets to $172.21B by November, which translated in to a 6.36% year-on-year growth. On the assets side, loans to the private sector augmented 8.59% since the end of December to $45.07B, of which 72.67% were denominated in foreign currencies (FC). In details, FC claims displayed a 7.79% y-t-d growth to $32.75B, while the local currency loans improved 10.79% to $12.32B. Loans to the non-resident private sector declined by 7.43% y-t-d, leading the loan’s dollarization rate to decrease from 76.54% in December 2013 to 75.62% by the end of November 2014. Meanwhile, claims on the public sector, which are primarily composed of Treasury Bills and Eurobonds, posted a 1% y-t-d decrease to $37.29B, as the 4.56% rise in T-bills denominated in local currency was more than offset by the 7.42% drop in Eurobonds. As for commercial banks’ liabilities, resident private sector deposits, edged up by 4.96% y-t-d to $113.06B by the end of November 2014. Almost 60% of these deposits were denominated in foreign currencies, which improved by 4.46% since the start of the year to reach $67.86B. Deposits denominated in local currency also increased by 5.71% y-t-d to $45.21B. Simultaneously, non-resident private sector deposits went up by 4.20% since the start of the year to $29.68B. The growth of non-resident private sector deposits denominated in local currency outpaced that of deposits denominated in foreign currencies, with respective changes of 12.74% and 3.06% y-t-d to $3.79B and $25.89B. Consequently, the dollarization rate of resident and non-resident private sector deposits slightly edged down from 66.13% at end-2013 to 65.68% by November 2014.

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