The entrance to the ABL headquarters, damaged in the wake of the Oct. 17, 2019, protests, is pictured on Aug. 7, 2025. (Credit: Philippe Hage Boutros/L’Orient-Le Jour)
“We’re all in the same boat.” While it is unclear whether this sentence was actually uttered, that is at least the message several members of the board of the Association of Banks in Lebanon (ABL) said they took away from a meeting held last week with Banque du Liban Governor Karim Souhaid.“We came away from the meeting feeling more reassured,” one of them said. More from Mounir Dozens of bankers set to appear before prosecutors for overseas transfers “There is nothing surprising about this: BDL owes banks around $79 billion, while the banks, in turn, owe depositors an almost equivalent amount. So they are all in the same boat: that of the financial system as a whole, which brings together the central bank and commercial banks,” BDL sources nevertheless point out, seemingly to refute the idea of a change in tone on the part of the...
“We’re all in the same boat.” While it is unclear whether this sentence was actually uttered, that is at least the message several members of the board of the Association of Banks in Lebanon (ABL) said they took away from a meeting held last week with Banque du Liban Governor Karim Souhaid.“We came away from the meeting feeling more reassured,” one of them said. More from Mounir Dozens of bankers set to appear before prosecutors for overseas transfers “There is nothing surprising about this: BDL owes banks around $79 billion, while the banks, in turn, owe depositors an almost equivalent amount. So they are all in the same boat: that of the financial system as a whole, which brings together the central bank and commercial banks,” BDL sources nevertheless point out, seemingly to refute the idea of a change in tone on...