Total consolidated assets of commercial banks amounted to $176.95B by March, a 0.72% growth since year start, and an improvement of 6.47% year-on-year (y-o-y).
In terms of assets, total reserves, with a weight of 36.47%, grew by 1.02% year-to-date (y-t-d) to $65.54B by the third month of the year. Loans to the private sector, which constituted 28% of total assets, edged up by 0.48% y-t-d to $51.14B by March. This was due to the 2.13% increase in private sector loans denominated in local currency to $12.70B, over the same period. The improvement was partially offset by 0.05% downtick to $38.44B on the private sector loans denominated in foreign currency from the beginning of the year. In turn, the dollarization of private sector loans went from 75.56% to 75.16%. During the same period, claims on the public sector, constituting 22.01% of total assets, also augmented by 4.27% y-t-d to settle at $38.94B by the third month of the year. As a matter of fact, T-bills in local currency dipped by 0.79% to $20.77B while Eurobonds escalated by 10.84% y-t-d to $20.39B, by March. This might have been partly due to the $2.2B Eurobond issuance in February.
On the liabilities side, resident private sector deposits (64.79% weight of total liabilities) expanded by 0.46% since year start to $114.65B in Q1. This was on the back of a 1.96% y-t-d escalation of resident deposits in Lebanese Pounds to $46.56 while there was a decline of 0.54% in USD resident deposits to $68.09B by the third month of the year. In parallel by March, local currency deposits (resident and non-resident) improved by 2.07% y-t-d to $50.55B, while those denominated in foreign currency stayed relatively stable at $94.91B. Consequently the dollarization rate of resident and non-resident private sector deposits dipped from 65.71% in December 2014 to 65.25% as of End-March.
Commercial Banks’ Assets By March
Source: Banque du Liban