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Promise of growth draws international banks to Iraq



Issue 954 - 20 Sep 2013 | 3 minute read

In the coming months, Lebanon’s Blom Bank will open its first branches in Iraq. According to the bank’s chairman, Saad Azhari, it has approval for branches in Baghdad and Erbil and expects to start business in both cities before the end of the year. Iraq may be a new market for the Lebanese bank, but it will find plenty of familiar faces when it gets there. At least six other Lebanese banks are already active in the country, vying for business alongside dozens of other home-grown and foreign-owned institutions, and more are coming all the time. According to recent media reports, the UK’s Standard Chartered has also gained approval to open branches in Baghdad, Basra and Erbil.

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