Byblos Bank released its unaudited financial statements for the first half of 2021, reporting a net loss of $0.81 million, compared to a breakeven result in H1-2020. In fact, the bank’s net interest income soared by 58.55% y-o-y to $355.53 million, while net commission & fee income dropped by 17.88% to $35.72 million. The increase in net interest income owes to the sizeable decrease in cost of funds as banks lowered interest rates paid on customer deposits to near zero levels particularly on foreign currency deposits. In parallel, Byblos Bank registered net losses on the financial instruments’ portfolio & other operating income of $19.62 million as the bank recorded some $16.25 million in other trading expenses. It is worth noting that Byblos Bank constituted provisions on expected credit losses of $199.61 million in H1-2021, compared to $465.32 million in the same period in 2020. Consequently, net operating income increased by 18.37% y-o-y to $172.02 million, while operating expenses increased by 6.53% to $108.22 million coupled with a significant rise in provisions for risks and charges to $19.58 million. On the balance sheet front, Byblos Bank’s consolidated assets fell by 6.13% during the first half of 2021 to circa $17.61 billion as net loans & advances decreased by 14.58% to $2.23 billion, which outweighed the 0.62% increase in cash and balances with Central Banks to $10.22 billion. In parallel, customer deposits dropped by 6.42% in the first six months of 2021 to around $13.92 billion. In this context, the bank’s ratio of net loans-to-customer deposits settled lower at 16.03% at end of June 2021 compared to 17.56% at end of 2020, with shareholder’s equity ending the period 0.17% higher at $1.56 billion.