In the last few years, leading Lebanese banks – Byblos Bank, Fransabank, Bank of Beirut and Audi Saradar – have set up shop in Khartoum. The expansion of Lebanese banks in Sudan was built on personal relations linking Lebanese bankers to the Lebanese community in Sudan and later with the Sudanese financial community. “It’s a relationship that can be traced back to the 70s,” said Laurent Hawath, head of the international banking division at Byblos Bank. In a world where globalization has become a way of life, the move was also part of a broader development strategy. “The Lebanese banking sector boasts a total balance sheet amounting to 3.5 times the Lebanese GDP. In such a saturated market, Lebanese banks are simply bound to expand abroad. In our case, it materialized through Fransabank Aljazaer in Algeria as well as Sudan and Syria, where we are scheduled to open in 2008,”
