Total consolidated assets of commercial banks amounted to $180.08B in H1, a 2.50% growth since year start, and an improvement of 6.20% year-on-year (y-o-y).
In terms of assets, total reserves, with a weight of 37.28%, grew by 5.74% year-to-date (y-t-d) to $67.13B by June of this year. Loans to the private sector, which constituted 28.73% of total assets, edged up by 1.66% y-t-d to $51.74B by June. This was due to the respective 4.83% and 0.63% y-t-d increases in private sector loans denominated in local and foreign currencies to $13.04B and $38.70B. Accordingly, the dollarization of private sector loans went from 75.56% by the end of 2014 to 74.80% by June 2015. During the same period, claims on the public sector, constituting 21.07% of total assets, also augmented by 1.59% y-t-d to settle at $37.95B. As a matter of fact, Eurobonds increased by 5.60% to $17.22B partly due to the $2.2B Eurobond issuance in February, and which was partially offset by the 1.44% decline in T-bills to $20.64B, from the beginning of the year.
On the liabilities side, resident private sector deposits (64.92% weight in total liabilities) progressed by 2.44% since December 2014 to $116.90B by June this year. The dollarization rate of resident and non-resident private sector deposits slid from 65.71% in December 2014 to 65.08% by June, as private LBP deposits grew at a pace of 4.77% y-t-d to $51.89B, faster than the 1.89% y-t-d growth to $96.69B of foreign private sector deposits.
Commercial Banks’ Assets By June
Source: Banque du Liban