The money transfer company OMT (Online Money Transfer SAL), one of the authorized agents of the Western Union network in Lebanon, denied in a statement the rumors circulating in particular on social networks according to which the Banque du Liban had withdrawn its license. allowing it to carry out foreign exchange transactions in parallel with its main activity.
In a brief press release, the company mentions “false and fabricated information” but admits having suspended its exchange operations, citing “the strong fluctuations” of the dollar / pound rate on the market of legal and illegal stockbrokers, relayed through informal platforms such as lirarate.org or Adde Dollar.
The exchange rate has indeed recorded fluctuations of an unprecedented magnitude in nominal terms over the past three weeks, taking around 20,000 pounds to reach a peak above 63,000 pounds for the dollar last week, before falling once more. a few thousand pounds lower. “However, according to the established mechanism, OMT might not buy and sell dollars at this rate and had to comply with that imposed by the BDL, which remained much lower. The rate we posted in our branches was 43,000 pounds to the dollar when the decision to suspend these operations was taken last Friday,” explained a source within the agency who did not wish to reveal his identity for professional reasons. “At this level, no one was interested in selling their dollars to us,” she adds. This same source adds that the company had for the moment no visibility concerning a possible resumption of this type of service.
OMT had started offering foreign exchange services in October 2021, following obtaining permission from the central bank to do so and a few weeks of running-in. The exchange rate used is fixed in coordination with the institution. The dollars obtained from its customers were “exclusively sold” to it, within the framework of a mechanism presented as intended to increase the country’s foreign exchange reserves. In fact, the rate charged by OMT agencies was generally £1,000 less than that charged by legal and illegal money changers. It took until February of the following year for the BDL to open up the possibility of carrying out foreign exchange transactions to other money transfer companies, an option exercised by BOB Finance (Bank of Beirut group, Western Union agent) , but not by CashUnited (Saradar group, MoneyGram agent).
Contacted, Bob Finance’s customer service assured that it had not been notified of any change in the conduct of foreign exchange transactions. The fact remains that the company’s website showed a rate of 46,000 pounds for one dollar, more than 10,000 pounds below that of the market on Monday evening. While the country is in the middle of its 4th year of crisis, the exchange rate seems to have been out of control for three weeks, a period marked in particular by the tightening of quotas for conversion to the Sayrafa rate, as well as the imposition of American sanctions once morest Hassan Moukalled and his exchange and transfer company CTEX, who had obtained his BDL license in 2021. The institution froze the accounts of the person concerned, his two sons and the company last week, in the wake of the US Treasury announcement.
The money transfer company OMT (Online Money Transfer SAL), one of the authorized agents of the Western Union network in Lebanon, denied in a statement the rumors circulating in particular on social networks according to which the Banque du Liban had withdrawn its license. allowing it to carry out foreign exchange transactions in parallel with its main activity. In a nutshell…
