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ENAR

Loans have divided societies throughout history, between people who consider them a beneficial product that allows customers to purchase goods they need now and pay for later in the future, and others like Thomas Jefferson who believe “that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” The latter category seems to be off base since banking credits expanded prodigiously in the past 50 years and banking activity in general generated remarkable profits for shareholders. This was driven in part by significant improvements in banking investment opportunities, with return on equity ranging between 20 and 25 percent for the financial industry as a whole up until the financial crisis in 2008. The boom years… Banking activity in Lebanon flourished after the end of the civil war, and it again took off in the period following the