A good starting point for reviewing the Lebanese banking sector at the end of 2017 to study a document that was published early in the year and is referred to in financial High Valyrian as a FSAP. For common folks, this stands for Financial Sector Assessment Program. A FSAP is undertaken by the institutions missing from Westeros: the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. To augment insights from the FSAP on Lebanon, which was published under the title Financial System Stability Assessment, one can turn to the findings of the IMF’s Article IV consultations on Lebanon. For readers who are interested in super-condensed material, the entire economic narrative of Lebanon in 2017, and 2016 before it, is contained in FSAP’s opening paragraphs, in just two sentences: “Lebanon has maintained financial stability for the last quarter-century during repeated shocks and challenges,” but “over time, macroeconomic and financial vulnerabilities have accumulated.” This
