Byblos Bank
Lebanese bank
Byblos Bank (Arabic: بنك بيبلوس) is a Lebanese bank established in 1963 and headquartered in Beirut, Lebanon. It is the country's third largest bank by assets. It is one of the Alpha banks in Lebanon, along with Banque Libano-Française S.A.L., Bank Audi, BLOM Bank, and Fransabank, which are its main competitors. As at 31 July 2018, it operates 88 branches in Lebanon.
History
Byblos Bank was initially founded in 1950 as “Société Commerciale et Agricole Byblos Bassil Frères & Co.”, a Lebanese company specialized in natural silk, leather tanning, and agricultural credit activities. In 1961, the company's name was changed to “Société Bancaire Agricole Byblos Bassil Frères & Co.”, and in 1963 it was established as Byblos Bank S.A.L and registered at the newly established Banque du Liban.
It welcomed its first banking clients in 1963 in Jbeil, Lebanon.
The initial founders include Semaan Melkan Bassil, Youssef Melkan Bassil, Victor Fernainé and Fouad Fernainé, all hailing from powerful families based in the ancient Phoenician town of Byblos, north of Beirut. François Bassil, the current Chairman of Byblos Bank Group, contributed to the establishment of Byblos Bank S.A.L in 1963.
International partnerships
Byblos Bank has established partnerships with several international entities including: the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which is the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, the Agence française de développement (AFD), which is a public institution providing development financing and its subsidiary, the Société de Promotion et Participation pour la Coopération Economique (PROPARCO).
The public source identifies “Byblos Bank” as lebanese bank. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Byblos, Bank and Lebanese.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18386118. VIAF identifies the subject as 1290145857148822922507. The Library of Congress control number is nb2016003864. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1963, 2018, 1950 and 1961.
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This entry incorporates text from “Byblos Bank” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.