Exclusive, "Akhbar al-Yawm" agency

Banks are only intermediaries!

For many years, most Lebanese have organized their lives on "bank loans" to buy houses, cars, investments, education, weddings... However, since the beginning of the crisis and the financial collapse in 2019, these loans have stopped completely, due to the inability of banks to control their reserves in the Bank of Lebanon...

Despite the relative stability in the exchange rate of the lira against the dollar, and the tendency of some banks to invent a new mechanism for dealing with customers and operating funds, the circumstance is still not suitable for banks to return to lending in the form that existed before the crisis.

But a new concept is starting to enter the market, albeit in a limited way, in order to facilitate obtaining funds in the form of loans and repaying them within short periods, it is the Peer-to-peer banking.

A banking source explains, via the "Akhbar al-Yawm" agency, that this process is approved in European and American banks, and it allows an individual to borrow and lend money without the presence of a financial institution, which brings many benefits for lenders and borrowers, as lenders can get high investment returns and profits, and borrowers will be able to get financial loans at low interest rates compared to traditional methods, and therefore the owners of the funds can operate for a specific interest, where the bank, under whose supervision these operations take place, is the intermediary between the two teams.

The source points out that the amounts loaned range from 10 to 50 thousand dollars, with the interest being between 10 and 12%, the bank receives a certain commission, explaining that this concept is one of the ways that some banks have begun to resort to in order to raise their commission and income, and their role is limited to being the intermediary between the two sides without bearing any responsibility in the event of the borrower defaulting on payment.

Clarifying that the commission received by the bank is not included in its budget, he points out that the loans currently received deal with specific facilities, and do not amount to huge investment amounts.

He concludes: there are banks that have started to resort to this technique, where the three parties (borrower, lender, Bank) benefit, but on the other hand, other banks are wary of entering into it, especially in the absence of laws regulating such operations in Lebanon.