The right kind of business

ENAR

Two niche markets are driving the business and growth of Jammal Trust Bank (JTB) at the start of 2014. One is in the bank’s home base in Lebanon and the other in West Africa. This diversification is not bad for a medium-sized lender that feels very comfortable being a mid-sized operator with just under $1 billion in assets — but what is surprising is that these two niches are at first sight entirely unconnected and even appear to represent opposite poles of core banking competencies. In Africa, JTB’s market comprises primarily the expatriate Lebanese business community “in every country that borders the Atlantic starting from Angola and all the way up to Dakar [Senegal]. We are present in these countries in the sense that we have clients there who are basically larger-end clients,” says Anwar Jammal, JTB’s chairman and general manager. In Lebanon, his clientele is far from big-ticket accounts