Banks are in the firing line

One banker, interviewed for this issue, said it: “Bankers feel threatened, bullied, and feel that they are [made to bear] responsibility for something that they did not do.” The stewards of the former Switzerland of the Middle East, the bright stars who transported our expertise across the world for decades, have been forced to cringe under their desks. Their error? Trusting the government. The mistake has placed them in the firing line of an angry and increasingly impoverished nation, who have a waning desire to be reasoned with. From voicing anger online, the attacks on banks have boiled over into more tangible and dangerous incidents in recent months; armed depositors storming banks merely to access their money has become one of the more upsetting and surreal features of Lebanon’s relentless crisis. Today the financial sector, once the economy’s crown jewel, is up to its neck in a homegrown calamity which