A Balance Sheet Analysis Of The Banque De Syrie Et Du Liban

The Banque de Syrie et du Liban was established through the French mandate of Syria and Lebanon. The institution was a combination of a commercial and central bank for the region and provided economic stability. By studying the bank’s balance sheets, this paper provides an analysis of its assets and liabilities. An accompanying spreadsheet workbook provides all the balance sheet data from the bank’s annual reports as most of this data has never been digitized or analyzed in English. Using historical analysis of the financial situations of Syria and Lebanon at the time, several observations are made about the bank’s influence from 1919 to 1963, as well as about how it evolved into Lebanon’s central bank.