According to Lebanon’s consolidated commercial banks’ balance sheet, total assets decreased by 4.13%, year-to-date (y-t-d), and stood at $180.28B in August 2021, according to Lebanon’s consolidated commercial banks’ balance sheet.
In details, resident customers’ deposits (which grasp 58.43% of total liabilities) decreased since December 2020 by 4.44% to $105.34B in August 2021, with deposits in LBP down ticked by 3.01% to $23.69B while the deposits in foreign currencies declined by 4.85% to stand at $81.64B.
As for Non-resident customers’ deposits grasping 14.47% of total liabilities, they recorded a drop of 4.61% and stood at $26.09B over the same period. In fact, the deposits in LBP retreated by 8.46% to reach $2.06B while deposits in foreign currencies declined by 4.26% and totaled $24.03B in August 2021. More importantly, the dollarization ratio for private sector deposits decreased from 80.40% in July 2021 to 80.11% in August 2021. In addition, Non-resident financial sector Liabilities held 2.92% of total Liabilities and dwindled by 20.14% to reach $5.26B y-t-d.
On the assets side, Reserves, constituting 61.15% of total assets, recorded a y-t-d downtick of 1.16% to settle at $110.24B in August 2021. Deposits with the central bank (BDL), grasping 98.21% of total reserves, witnessed a slight y-t-d decrease of 1.96% to reach $108.27B.
Meanwhile, Claims on resident customers, constituting 14.92% of total assets, shrank by 15.31%, to stand at $26.90B in August 2021. Moreover, Resident Securities portfolio (11.55% of total assets) dropped by 7.28% during August to stand at $20.83B. Specifically, the subscriptions in T-bills in LBP dropped by 3.78% to reach $11.02B in August 2021 while the Eurobond holding recorded a decline of 17.59% and totaled $7.74B for the same period, as banks are selling their Eurobonds to shore up their foreign currency liquidity. In addition, claims on non-resident financial sector increased by 8.60% to record $5.12B in August 2021, perhaps to settle some of the non-resident financial sector liabilities mentioned above.
Interesting to note that in the past couple of months, limiting lira withdrawals for customers are the result of the central bank lowering the limit on commercial banks’ cash withdrawals from BDL. In addition, the rate of withdrawing dollar deposits according to circular 151 was kept at 3,900 LBP till 31/1/2022.
Commercial Banks Assets and Residents Customer Deposits by August ($B)
