The media department of Bank of Resources, S.A.L. announced the following in a statement: "Since the beginning of the crisis in October 2019, Bank of Resources has felt that the Association of Banks in Lebanon has been making decisions that do not necessarily serve the interests of its members and depositors alike, and in some cases, these decisions undermine or fail to protect the banking sector as a whole, particularly concerning maintaining its reputation and relationships with depositors. The Association of Banks in Lebanon has consistently taken decisions and stances, since October 2019 to the present, that are far from the interests of member banks and detrimental to both the banking sector and depositors. This began with the decision to close banks for two weeks in October 2019, which represented the first blow to the trust that had existed for decades between banks and depositors. This trust was one of the foundations of the success and prosperity of the banking sector in Lebanon, up to the recent correspondence directed to the International Monetary Fund, the latest of which was a letter dated June 21, 2022, sent by the Association's advisor, Decision Boundaries, to Mr. Ernesto Ramirez Rigo, the head of the IMF mission to Lebanon, without consulting the association's members to inform and discuss its contents and hear their opinions and positions regarding proposed solutions, steps, and work plans. Members were also not informed about the appointment of the aforementioned company as an advisor to the Association of Banks in Lebanon, nor about the conditions governing this appointment."
It stated, "What is astonishing in this matter is that most banks learned the news through the media and social media platforms. Despite the opportunity the Association of Banks in Lebanon had over the past two years to prevent the crisis from worsening or at least contain it, it has failed to perform and has not made the necessary decisions to find formulas and solutions for returning deposits to their rightful owners. It has remained in a state of denial, disregarding the need for member banks to be proactive in any decision made, and to assume responsibility commensurate with the risks each bank has taken, which are clear in their balance sheets. It continues to position itself only to protect banks and their owners without safeguarding deposits and their owners, and without confirming the superiority of deposits over their capital. As the purpose of banks is essentially to safeguard deposits, which are a trust, it is impossible to separate depositors from banks – there can be no banks without depositors, nor depositors without banks. Hence, Bank of Resources cannot stand idly by in the face of attempts to impose losses on depositors and write off their deposits."
It announced that "Bank of Resources suspends its membership in the Association of Banks in Lebanon until matters are corrected in the interest of depositors first. It also calls on other banks to follow suit and suspend their memberships, hoping that the message will be clearly conveyed to the leadership of the Association of Banks in Lebanon that enough is enough, and that matters must be dealt with at a higher level of responsibility, realism, and awareness."
