The Lebanese pound is pegged to the US dollar. A Lebanese pound bank account pays 6% interest. Lebanese banks are regarded as safe because not a single one went bust or lost money during the entire civil war period.
--Cyprus was considered safer, much wealthier, no Cypriot bank had gone under during 1974, further more they are a member of EU and look what has happened to them. --- +1..pretty pretty good example. i mean-if one can spread the wealth(Barry O quote) and diversify to the hilt-yeah..maybe..you gain here,lose there. but having it all in couple banks,in one piece of s** country,chasing couple more % points-suicidal. and this is precisely why i'm keeping my money in US. if shit hits the fan-well.. so be it. at least-I'm not going to dive alone..there is will be much more shit on every corner in the rest of the world. in fact-the world would swim in it. with US once again likely flow on the top
Only reason people would think that a Lebanese bank is safe is that they have a sufficiently large deposit and a good senior BoD or Management connection to make sure that if/when the bank goes bust they will get the "courtesy call" ahead of time provided they can pay the right price and the bank gets their money out... if you are a joe blow depositor in one of these banks and especially a foreigner, good luck! Look at BCCI that was in the UAE, local depositors got 100%, expats, which are a majority of the population got a shaft, obviously the UAE has grown and changed since then, 1YR deposit rates are barely 2% at mid tier banks, Lebanon is obviously different