BLOM Bank Chairman: “We Were Threatened” To Allow Dollar Transfers Abroad

In an interview on “Bloomberg Daybreak: Middle East,” BLOM Bank chairman Saad Azhari spoke with news anchor Yousef Gamal El-Din about Lebanon’s current financial and economic crisis.

Azhari discussed the role of Lebanon’s central bank in the crisis, and the importance of a new government that can help ease the effects of the crisis.

The chairman also claimed that “as of October 2019, in terms of morality, we did not accept to do any transfers except for humanitarian reasons”. BLOM’s MD went on to detail, “definitely we didn’t accept from any owners of the bank or management or politicians to get their money out of Lebanon and we were threatened”.

This claim comes at a time when banks and their owners have been accused of smuggling up to $6 billion out of Lebanon between October 2019 and June 2020. They have not been able to refute this accusation as of yet.

You can watch Azhari’s full interview here.