A real future for Beirut’s financial center potential

During the 1960s and 1970s, Beirut was globally acknowledged as the banking center of the Middle East. Lebanese banks flourished and built up strong franchises by picking up petro-dollar deposits from Gulf investors – particularly after the 1973 oil crisis. Foreign banks increasingly chose Beirut as a regional hub. Beirut, with its cosmopolitan outlook, was considered a democracy with significant potential; it was located only a few hours’ flight from Europe and had embraced European and Western culture. The city was politically neutral in a turbulent region, had a growing economy based on trade and intermediation with Gulf countries, and had sophisticated (for the time) banking regulations and one of the few banking secrecy regimes in a world in which any country (apart from the US) was in danger of falling into communism, extreme socialism and state economic control. The days of Lebanese excellence Lebanon was also very well equipped