According to Lebanon’s consolidated commercial banks’ balance sheet, total assets decreased by 8.63%, year-to-date (y-t-d), to stand at $198B in July 2020.
In details, Resident customers’ deposits (which grasp 57.43% of total liabilities) decreased since the start of the year by 9.01% ($11.26B) to $113.77B in July 2020, with deposits in LBP and in foreign currencies declining by 25.67% and 2.66% to $25.63B and $88.14B, respectively.
As for the Non-resident customers’ deposits (14.12% of total liabilities), they retreated by 13.79% ($4.47B) and totaled $27.98B over the same period on the back of a drop in deposits in LBP and in foreign currencies by 29.72% and 12.08% to $2.20B and $25.77B, respectively. As such, the dollarization ratio for private sector deposits increased from 76.02% in December 2019 to 80.16% in July 2020.
On the assets side, Reserves (constituting 57.98% of total assets) recorded y-t-d downtick of 2.85% to settle at $114.84B in July 2020. Deposits with the central bank (BDL) (99.01% of total reserves) recorded a y-t-d downtick of 3.41% to reach $113.71B. Worth mentioning that starting December 2019 (and according to the offsetting criteria in IAS 32 “Financial Instruments: Presentation”), banks have offset their loans taken from BDL in LBP with their corresponding placements at BDL in LBP carrying the same maturities. Meanwhile, Claims on resident customers (17.87% of total assets) retreated by 19.41%, to stand at $35.39B in July 2020. Moreover, Claims on the government (12.76% of total assets) declined by 15.88% during the year to stand at $25.28B. In details, the subscription to T-bills in LBP and to Eurobonds recorded a decline by 8% and 25.33% to $13.47B and $10.32B, respectively in July 2020.
Commercial Banks Assets and Residents Customer Deposits in July ($B)
Source: BDL