The acting Governor of the Central Bank of Lebanon, Wassim Mansouri, has called for a meeting with bank chairpersons today at 11 AM at the Central Bank, to inform them of the amendment to Circular 151. This amendment allows depositors who do not benefit from Circular 158 to withdraw $150, adopting an exchange rate of 89,500 Lebanese Lira to the dollar, as reported by "Nidaa al-Watan." Among the facilities that the Central Bank will present is that it will pay the $150, while banks are obliged to pay 50% of the amount in Lira. This measure allows banks to maintain their liquidity in dollars during the restructuring and recovery phase. The Central Bank will secure the amount from the market, a feat it has achieved since Riad Salameh's departure from governance and its transformation into a quasi-sole market maker maintaining monetary stability, pending the launch of the Bloomberg platform.
Currently, the unified exchange rate of 89,500 Lira to the dollar will apply to banks' balance sheets, so that most of them will need to inject new capital. However, this is also tied to capital control laws, the restructuring of banks, and financial reorganization—laws that the government and parliament have been avoiding expediting for manifest reasons of incapacity to face the crisis from 2020 until today.
