The Association of Banks in Lebanon (ABL) has revealed the conditions required for banks to unlock frozen deposits and allow people to access them again.
In a statement, the ABL refused to carry “the burden of the collapse,” stressing that the financial and banking crises were caused primarily by the political crisis in Lebanon.
Having said that, the Association explained that banks would be able to unfreeze people’s savings as soon the state settled its debts with the Central Bank of Lebanon (BDL).
“Banks are committed to, and always abide by, the right of depositors to obtain their savings, and they confirm that once the state returns the money borrowed from the central bank, they will be able to directly restore the rights to their owners,” it stated.
This, however, would require “the formation of a homogeneous government that develops a rational plan that would be the basis for negotiations with the International Monetary Fund and allow the liberalization of aid and investments.”
The Association again criticized the political establishment’s performance, noting that banks “were not the ones that would intentionally, in every ministerial statement for nearly thirty years, affirm fixing the national currency.”
Banks were not, the ABL continued, the ones that were “urging the state to increasingly borrow from the money deposited in the central bank” or hindering the passing of capital control laws.
This statement comes two days after Lebanese President Michel Aoun made a televised speech in which he blamed the BDL for the country’s financial meltdown.
