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A 31.83% surge brought bank assets to $115.25 billion in December 2023, following the Central Bank du Liban (BDL)’s adoption of a new exchange rate of 15,000 Lebanese pounds per US dollar.
As for the assets, currency and deposits held with the Central Bank represented a significant 72.99% of the total, witnessing a yearly decline of 23.4% to stand at $84.12 billion by December 2023.
Deposits with the Central Bank of Lebanon constituted 99.41% of the total reserves and declined by 20.71% annually to reach $83.62 billion by December 2023.
Moreover, Lebanese pound cash reserves dropped by 88.67% annually to settle at $492.54 million during the same period, a fall attributed to the calculation based on the new official exchange rate of 15,000 Lebanese pounds per US dollar.
Claims on resident clients, representing 6.21% of total assets, sharply declined by 59.88% to $7.15 billion by December 2023.
Furthermore, the resident securities’ portfolio, comprising 5.13% of total assets, plummeted by 58.26% in December 2023 to settle at $5.91 billion. Specifically, the euro-bond portfolio witnessed a 25.31% decrease since December 2022, reaching $2.19 billion by the end of December 2023. Additionally, claims on the non-resident financial sector increased by 6.18% annually to reach $4.46 billion by December 2023.
On the liabilities side, resident customer deposits form the primary account, representing 63% of the total. They declined by 27.51% since December 2022 to reach $72.61 billion by December 2023.
More specifically, foreign currency deposits, constituting 95.73% of resident customer deposits, declined by 4.99% annually to reach $69.51 billion by December 2023. Meanwhile, Lebanese pound deposits, comprising 4.27% of resident customer deposits, dropped by 88.51% annually, to attain $3.1 billion by December 2023.
As for deposits from non-resident clients, constituting 18.34% of the total liabilities, they witnessed a decrease of 9.66% to reach $21.14 billion by December 2023. In detail, Lebanese pound deposits plummeted by 90.56% to $190.15 million, while foreign currency deposits dipped by 2.04% to $20.95 billion over the same period.
Furthermore, liabilities from the non-resident financial sector represented 2.5% of total liabilities and decreased by 33.11% annually to reach $2.89 billion by December 2023. Even more importantly, the dollarization ratio of private sector deposits surged from 76.06% in December 2022 to 96.34% in December 2023.