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He added that “Assad saw that the Syrian crisis” has another reason that nobody talks about, and that is the money of the Syrians deposited in Lebanon, and said that “between 20,000 and 42,000 million deposits were lost in the Lebanese banking sector, which was active and had deposits in hard currency. ” More than 170 billion dollars. “
However, the former head of the Banking Supervision Committee, Samir Hammoud, confirmed: “The volume of Syrian deposits in Lebanese banks constitutes about 6% of total deposits, which means that it does not exceed $ 7 billion. “refusing to hold the Lebanese banking sector responsible for the current Syrian crisis.
He noted that “there are no restrictions on total deposits, whether for Syrians or others. Rather, there is a dollar crisis that Lebanon’s banks are suffering, and if we were in a normal situation, we would give each depositary their right to remove it “.
He also explained that “most of the Syrian deposits in Lebanese banks belong to people who have no relationship with the companies.”
He also stressed that “the banking sector, as a result of the crisis it is going through, is subject to legal disputes, either inside or outside Lebanon.”
Likewise, senior banking sources based their response to Assad on the monthly bulletin issued by the Banque du Liban, which showed that the total deposits of non-Lebanese reached 43 billion pounds, or 27 billion dollars spread over multiple nationalities.
He noted that “Bashar al-Assad’s claim that Syrian deposits held in Lebanese banks amount to $ 40 billion is incorrect, because total Syrian deposits in Lebanon do not exceed $ 6 billion.”
He also clarified that “approximately 40 percent of the owners of real estate and apartments in downtown Beirut are Syrian and large merchants, so they deposited their money in Lebanese banks.”
The report noted that “Bashar al-Assad’s talk on Syrian deposits in Lebanon shed light on the problem of the depletion of Lebanese dollars by the Syrian economy, which were prevented from accessing, as the Flexible borders between the two countries formed a conduit for smuggling dollars into Syria, as well as food and fuel subsidized by the Central Bank of Lebanon, according to the official exchange rate (1515).
In the context, high-level banking sources revealed: “A large part of the funds that were transferred out of Lebanon after October 17 last year, estimated at $ 6 billion, belong to Syrians.”
The former head of the Banking Control Commission pointed out that “Lebanon is no longer a market serving the Syrian economy, due to the shortage of dollars.”
He also explained: “There is no banking movement between Lebanon and Syria, and we, as Lebanese banks, refused to receive deposits from Syrian clients after the outbreak of war in their country, for fear that US sanctions would affect us.”
According to the report, “there are 7 branches of Lebanese banks in Syria, but according to previous circulars of the Banque du Liban, they follow Syrian laws and, according to Hammoud, there is no direct management of Lebanese banks over them, to avoid the process of consolidation of the balance sheet and protect operations with correspondent banks “.
