A depositor using an ATM in Beirut. (Credit: Sandrine Frem/L'Orient Today)
BEIRUT — The Banque du Liban (BDL)’s Central Council published intermediary circulars 697 and 698 on Thursday, approving the renewal of Circulars No. 158 and 166. Set to go into effect on July 1, 2024, the decision will be valid for one year and includes amendments to each circular, meant to allow a larger number of people to be affected by them.
Circular No. 158, first adopted in 2021, allowed withdrawals of $300 to $400 in “fresh” dollars from foreign currency bank accounts opened before Oct. 30, 2019 (considered now “lollar accounts”). This marks the third time Circular 158 gets renewed since its inception.
Depositors who had signed up for the circular before June 30, 2023 were allowed to withdraw $400 every month (up top $4,800 a year, for a total of $50,000) while those who chose to benefit from the circular after July 1, 2023 could access only $300 per month from their bank accounts (for a total between $3,600 per year).
Meanwhile, BDL’s newer circular (166), which went into effect on Feb. 3, 2024, allowed eligible depositors to withdraw $150 in fresh US dollars (per month, up to a limit of $4,350) from their dollar-denominated bank accounts opened between Oct. 31, 2019 and June 30, 2023. It also replaced Circular 151, which had gone into effect from April 2020 until December 2023, and has since been discontinued.
The two circulars issued are part of a series of circulars that had been issued since the beginning of the crisis in 2019, meant to alleviate the losses incurred by depositors whose funds — worth $70 billion in total — remain illegally trapped in Lebanese banks.
What has changed for Lebanese depositors?
The amendments done to both circulars aimed at “expanding” the pool of depositors who would be affected by them.
According to a statement issued in parallel by BDL, depositors who had previously benefited from Circular No.158 (but no longer do) may now also benefit from Circular No. 166, if eligible under the Circular’s new conditions.
During the past year, Lebanon’s central bank had restricted the ability of depositors to benefit from its newest circular (166) if they had cashed monthly payments through Circular 158.
Beneficiaries still cannot, however, benefit from the two circulars simultaneously.
The BDL considers a depositor ineligible for Circular No. 166 if:
• A person has taken part in the exchange of checks for profit purposes after 31/10/2019.
• A person has converted the equivalent of more than $300,000 from lira-denominated accounts to foreign currency after 31/10/2019. This does not, however, apply to end-of-service indemnities.
• People who have repaid dollar-denominated loans in Lebanese Lira for amounts exceeding $300,000 after 31/10/2019.
• People who have converted the equivalent of more than $300,000 from US dollars to Lebanese Lira after 31/10/2019.
• People who converted more than the equivalent of $75,000 through BDL’s platform Sayrafa.
• People who have failed to comply with the provisions of Circular N. 154, which had gone into effect in August 2020, and which required those who transferred more than $500,000 abroad between 1 July 2017 and 27 August 2020 to repatriate at least 15 percent of these amounts (or 30 percent for certain categories such as bank directors) and place them in a blocked bank account.