Bank of Beirut published its unaudited financial statements for the year 2020 conveying a net after tax loss of $249.94 million, compared to a smaller loss of $122.09 million in 2019. In details, the bank’s net interest income increased by 11.08% y-o-y to around $585.95 million on the back of the sizeable drop in the cost of funds as banks lowered interest rates paid on customer deposits and was accompanied by a 36.42% contraction in provisions on expected credit losses to $322.96 million. This, however, was outweighed by a 48.64% y-o-y drop in net commission & fee income to $51.77 million and a sizeable increase in net losses on investment in financial instruments & other operating income to $342.05 million. Consequently, net operating income fell by 128.68% annually to read a loss of $28.15 million. In parallel, the bank’s operating expenses were trimmed down by 8.08% in 2020 to $188.22 million. On the balance sheet front, Bank of Beirut’s total assets narrowed by 17.54% during the year 2020 to around $13.44 billion, mainly owing to some 21.31% drop in net loans & advances to about $3.91 billion coupled with a 7.76% contraction in cash and placements with central banks to $5.66 billion. Customer deposits at Bank of Beirut also fell by 12.65% in 2020 to $10.73 billion, with the ratio of net loans to customer deposits narrowing to 36.44%, from 40.45% at end of 2019. On the capitalization front, the bank’s shareholders’ equity contracted by 12.83% in 2020 to $1.37 billion.