Dark, heavy storm clouds continue to linger over the heads of many bankers worldwide, troubled by the subprime market crisis, fraud, financial havens and the plunging dollar. Lebanese banks have weathered this fiscal hurricane so far, although dark clouds in the otherwise clear skies over Beirut are dampening the sector’s dynamism. But while the West wakes up to yet another financial scandal and Beirut’s political impasse drags on, Lebanese banks in Syria have been having a field day since the sector was liberalized in 2001 and the Lebanese pin stripes moved into Damascus. “Generally speaking all private banks have improved — improved assets, number of branches, liabilities, deposits and turnover — and all have made profit,” said Georges Sayegh, General Manager of Bank of Syria and Overseas, BLOM Bank’s Syrian arm. Indeed, private banks accounted for over a third of all private sector deposits at the end of 2007,
