The Ugly Truth: Unraveling the Crisis of Depositors' Funds and the Fading Hope for Recovery

Where have the depositors' funds gone, and is there any hope of recovering them? To understand the depth of the crisis we are facing, we need to look at two figures presented in the latest version of the government's plan.

The first figure is the total amount of our deposits in banks today, which amounts to $93.5 billion. The second figure is what these banks have in return, which is $21 billion and possibly less, as not all of this amount can be accessed immediately. So, how is this $21 billion distributed?

- $4 billion is held abroad by correspondent banks. However, this amount is not completely free, as it is used by the banks to carry out import transactions and repay loans to international institutions.

- $6 billion represents loans granted by banks to the private sector, which are being repaid, but full repayment will take time.

- Approximately $1 billion is the value of Eurobonds owed by banks to the state.

- The most crucial point is the nearly $10 billion of mandatory reserves held by banks at the Central Bank of Lebanon. This is where the crux of the problem lies.

These $10 billion are all that remains in hard cash from the original $85 billion that banks had placed in the Central Bank of Lebanon over the years. The remaining funds have been depleted, but how? To be continued...