Makram Azar is Chairman of Banking EMEA and Chairman of Barclays Bank PLC, MENA. Makram also chairs the Senior Client Group globally. Mr. Azar joined Barclays in September 2010 from Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR) where he was Managing Director and Head of Middle East and North Africa. Prior to joining KKR, Mr. Azar…
Roundup of numbers and sentiments
After a long and depressing dry spell that made local markets yearn for fresh investments, the Lebanese investment climate is looking up, says Jamil Koudim, the head of the asset management team at Beirut-based Banque Libano-Française (BLF). He presides over a family whose offspring has just doubled from a single fund to two. After the…
Analysis of banking sector results
The profitability of alpha banks – those with deposits above $2 billion – has grown in the third quarter of 2016 when measured by the improved return on average equity (ROAE). The ROAE ratio at end of September was almost two percentage points higher than a year earlier. This insight from quarterly figures released after…
What to expect from Lebanese banks in 2017
On the banking sector’s consolidation front, 2016 saw some action. The already conjoined lenders BIT and NECB rebranded as Saradar Bank, and the acquisition of Bank Pharaon and Chiha by Byblos Bank and BLOM Bank’s acquisition of HSBC Lebanon had not only been long in the making, but should also not be put at the…
Big money
In May 2016, Banque du Liban (BDL), Lebanon’s central bank, completed the first phase of a swap operation with the Ministry of Finance (MoF). Following that, BDL pulled the financial engineering tool out of its bag. It proceeded to banks with an offer to enter into a transaction in which they would have to bring…
Toward a national strategy
Financial literacy is a hot global policy potato that emerged as the flavor of the month for October 2016, according to the taste buds of the Organization for Economic Development and Co-operation (OECD) and a publication by the Association of Banks (ABL) in Lebanon. “Financial literacy, financial capability and consumer protection have been in focus…
A view from the other side
Law 161 was passed five years ago to create a financial regulatory agency and structure capital markets in Lebanon. Some market players are becoming restive and others are criticizing omissions in the law’s implementation and aspects of the CMA’s methods. To understand how things look from the CMA’s perspective, Executive sat down with CMA Executive…
A desire to monopolize the Lebanese forex market?
One issue has emerged as a stumbling block in the relations between the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) and parts of the financial industry in recent months. The concerned sub-sector of the financial industry is a group of companies specializing in digital currency trade, also known as forex platforms or, fx companies. The Lebanese problem with…
To be or when to be
On the face of it, the story of financial markets and their regulator, the Capital Markets Authority (CMA), looks like just another manifestation of Lebanese chaos. Institutions and measures that were prescribed by law in context of the CMA’s creation (in this case, Law 161 of 2011) are overdue in their implementation. Not just in…
The Gulf after oil
It is timely and prudent to review the policies of Gulf Cooperation Council countries. The region, which is known for deriving much of its economic revenues from the exporting of oil, entered difficult fiscal waters around 2014. It is in need of new ideas for economic development, given the confluence in 2016 of uncertainty about…