This is the year-on-year decline in the number of bank branches in Lebanon at the end of June 2022, falling to 902 against 1,017 a year earlier.
In fact, 115 branches have closed their doors in one year, according to figures from the Banque du Liban relayed by the weekly bulletin Lebanon This Week from the Byblos Bank. This is a drop of 21% compared to June 2020, when the banking sector had 1,141 branches. This decline is logically explained by the economic and financial crisis that the country has been going through for three years, as well as the crisis of confidence that has set in since the banks limited depositors’ access to their foreign currency accounts in prohibiting them from withdrawing or transferring all or part thereof abroad.
A crisis for which an emergency solution would be the implementation of the preliminary agreement between the Lebanese authorities and the International Monetary Fund, concluded in April and relating to an envelope of 3 billion dollars spread over 4 years. However, this agreement remains conditional on a number of essential reforms to revive the country’s economy, including a restructuring of the banking sector. In August 2020, the BDL published Circular No. 154 including several measures to define the contours of this restructuring, the sector being estimated by several experts as being far too large compared to the size of the national economy. However, this text remains theoretical so far.
In detail of this drop recorded at the end of last June, local commercial banks had 830 branches, constituting a drop of 11.98% compared to the 943 branches that this category recorded in June 2021, and of 20.72% compared to 1,047 branches of this same category that the sector had in June 2020. Spread over the whole territory, it is in the region of Beirut and its suburbs that the greatest number of commercial banking branches have found a storefront, with 434 branches, or 52.3% of the total. The capital is followed by the Mont-Liban region with 167 branches (20.1%) and those of North Lebanon (87 branches, 10.5%), South Lebanon (86 branches, 10.4%) and Bekaa (6 branches, 7%).
In addition to these traditional branches, Lebanese commercial banks have electronic branches (e-branch). In addition to local commercial banks, and also at the end of June 2022, 9 foreign commercial banks were operating in the country with 21 branches to their credit. There were also 4 Islamic banks with 12 branches. All in all, during this same period, the Lebanese banking sector had 46 commercial banks and 15 investment banks. Figures unchanged since the same period last year.
This is the year-on-year decline in the number of bank branches in Lebanon at the end of June 2022, falling to 902 against 1,017 a year earlier. In fact, 115 branches have closed their doors in one year, according to figures from the Banque du Liban relayed by the weekly bulletin Lebanon This Week from the Byblos Bank. This is a drop of 21% compared to June 2020,…