Middle East: War gives Lebanon’s banks an edge

It is a truism of Middle East finance that the region’s banks can handle political volatility. But of all Arab markets, perhaps the one with the most irrepressible banks is Lebanon – seen as the Switzerland of the Middle East, before its devastating civil war of the 1970s and 1980s.

Lebanon has shown resilience in very stressful situations, through wars, street fights, assassinations and political turbulence Riad Salamé, central bank governor

While terrorism, refugees and war stretch from its borders with Syria and Israel often to the heart of government in Beirut, Lebanon’s banks are in aggregate more than four times bigger than its economy.