François Bassil

Francois S. Bassil is chairman and general manager of Byblos Bank. Given how Lebanese banks survived the financial crisis virtually unscathed, Executive presented Bassil with some questions about the Lebanese banking sector and his expectations for the country’s financial future. What are your expectations for the Lebanese banking sector in 2010? One of the key priorities for this year will be to increasingly focus on risk management. The credit crisis has revealed glaring gaps in risk management, as banks around the world learned to their peril, that the underestimation of liquidity created severe systemic risk. Commercial banks in Lebanon have a fiduciary responsibility to conserve capital, safeguard deposits and minimize depositors’ risk. The crisis has clearly reflected the fact that the size of financial institutions is not the most relevant criteria; some of the largest global commercial and investment banks aggressively expanded their balance sheets at the expense of proper