Lebanese banks expanding regional reach

There are perhaps two defining features of the Lebanese banking system in the last six years. The first, more recent feature, is its emergence as a safe haven amid the global financial crisis that has enabled Lebanese banks to benefit from capital inflows seeking safer and better returns, increasing assets relative to last year by 17 percent to more than $105 billion. The second, relatively more distant feature, is the expansion of Lebanese banks into regional and neighboring countries. Currently, there are 11 Lebanese banks with more than 220 foreign banking units spread over a large swath of countries in the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Lebanese banks’ overseas presence is unsurprising. The major banks have always had a presence in Europe — primarily France, Switzerland, Belgium and the United Kingdom — to serve Lebanese and Arab expatriates in niche services, like private banking and trade finance, but that has