Gold Magazine April - May 2013, Issue 25 | Page 58

BANKING

I believe that
the Cypriot
people need to
be supported
right now

hope to extend our services to include
more retail-oriented services such as issuing chequebooks and payment cards,
etc.”
These days, IBL is one of Lebanon’s
best-performing banks in terms of
growth in deposits and loans. It also enjoys the highest Primary Liquidity ratio
among the top Lebanese Banks. “We
have a very a good capital adequacy ratio
so it’s a financially sound bank,” says its
Cyprus manager.
Although many of the bank’s customers are, not surprisingly, Lebanese, it has a growing number of local
and international depositors.
For IBL and other foreign banks, the downsizing of the Cyprus
banking sector may actually affect their operations though the Manager of IBL is quick to point out that “The Bank has been planning
to develop its business in Cyprus for some time and there are no
changes to those plans. Naturally, we shall be monitoring the situation closely but we do not expect to be affected in a negative way by
what’s happened. We have to be patient and possibly more cautious
but I believe that the Cypriot people need to be supported right
now. If we can do that, it will obviously be good for us in the long
term as well.”
Will the resolution/restructuring of the country’s two largest banks
eventually prove to have been a positive step? Ghada Shami Christofides has no doubts about this:
“I sincerely believe so, yes, despite the pain it will cause. I think
people will learn to manage their finances better and banks and companies will have to manage their businesses better too. I’m optimistic.
Essentially Cyprus has been forced to do what it should have done
on its own but didn’t manage to for one reason or another. In the
long term this is definitely going to be good for Cyprus.”
While banking is the sector of the economy that has been affected
most obviously by the bailout deal with the Troika, the professional
services sector, which has proved to be crucial to Cyprus in recent
years, could take a hit. Does Christofides believe that it will inevitably be affected too?
“I think we should be honest,” she says. “Of course it will be affected. People have lost confidence and it’s going to take a while
for them to come back to Cyprus and
encourage others to come. It’s going to
take a lot of hard work but Cyprus still
has many advantages; indeed it retains
all those that we could have talked
about six months ago. I don’t think for
a moment that most people are going
to leave but it’s clear that some will. So
while it’s good to be positive, we have
to be realistic and the fact is that Cyprus
is going to be affected, especially in the
short term. Eventually, though, things
will be fine and I actually expect Cyprus
to experience an economic boom in the
future. If the current situation is managed well and the new prospects for the
energy sector are dealt with properly,
this is going to be the place to be. And
I can assure you that I want to be here
too!”

All over the world, bankers and the
banking industry in general have been
at the receiving end of a barrage of
negative publicity surrounding everything from f [