...an Iranian colony situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozeen flavors of Christians. It is the home of Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers..., Elias Skaff used to wait for hours to withdraw cash at the bank but now prefers money transfer companies as trust in lenders has evaporated.
Anyone who relies on traditional banks to receive their money "will die 100 times before cashing it," said Skaff, 50, who has survived Lebanon's three-year-old economic downturn with the help of U.S. dollar payments from a relative abroad.
Once the flagship of Lebanon's economy, the banking sector is now widely despised and avoided after banks barred depositors from accessing their savings, stopped offering loans, closed hundreds of branches and slashed thousands of jobs.
Last month, a local man was widely cheered as a folk hero after he stormed a Beirut bank with a rifle and held employees and customers hostage for hours to demand some of his $200,000 in frozen savings to pay hospital bills for his sick father.
Increasingly, as Lebanon's deep crisis shows no sign of abating, money transfer agencies are filling the gap, also offering currency exchange, credit card and tax payment services and even setting up wedding gift registries.
Skaff said he now receives his money via a Beirut branch of Western Union's Lebanese agent OMT, which says it operates more than 1,200 branches nationwide and handles 80 percent of money transfers outside the Lebanese banking sector.
"We create services similar to those that banks provide at the request of our customers," said OMT front man Naji Abou Zeid.
Lebanon has been battered by its worst-ever economic crisis since the financial sector went into meltdown in 2019. The local currency has lost more than 90 percent of its value on the black market, as poverty and unemployment have soared.
Angry protesters have often targeted banks, trashing their ATM machines with rocks and spray cans.
"We can't even withdraw a penny" from the bank, said 45-year-old Alaa Sheikhani, a customer standing in line at an OMT branch.
"How are we supposed to trust them with our money?"