Who owns the banks

Lebanon’s banking sector has been called many things: the unofficial government, the country’s financial savior, a nepotistic mafia, and that ‘other economy,’ which continuously shines while the ‘real economy’ limps behind.  That the banks have extraordinary influence here is a given, having funded the country’s post-war reconstruction through loans to the government and ridden out every kind of systematic risk imaginable, bar a nuclear bomb or natural disaster. The banks and the bankers are Lebanon’s economic superstars. The ‘real’ power brokers The owners of the banks are clearly powerful men, with the ear of the government and the Central Bank. Indeed, BankMed is owned by the Hariri family’s Group Med, with Prime Minister Saad Hariri having a 24 percent stake. Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh was appointed during the late former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri’s first term in office in 1993, while many of the senior administration are affiliated with