Lending homeowners a hand

They are not actually new-new. They give banks smaller margins than they did in their previous incarnation. They are tightly controlled with very little to no wiggle room on interest rates for most of the duration of the loan.  Yet the central bank’s current offering of housing loan subsidies was met with tremendous enthusiasm at commercial banks, which told Executive that they presented the subsidized loans to their customers within days of the issuance of a Banque du Liban (BDL) circular that announced the terms at which banks could rush to the subsidy pots.   Banque Libano-Francaise (BLF) and Bank Audi are but two examples for the high speed with which the lending programs were rolled out throughout the banking sector. When the central bank issued its circular on January 16, Bank Audi was ready to go within 48 hours, Head of Retail Banking Grace Eid told Executive. BLF also