From left to right: Finance Minister Yassine Jaber, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, IMF Director Kristalina Georgieva, and Economy Minister Amer Bisat, in Davos on Jan. 25, 2026. Photo published on the Grand Serail’s account.
BEIRUT — The International Monetary Fund is urging Lebanon to include "clearer provisions on the hierarchy of responsibilities" in the draft law on restoring financial order and returning deposits, commonly referred to as the "financial gap law."
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, quoted by Reuters, said the IMF is insisting on a long-standing principle: bank shareholders should be the first to absorb losses before any contribution is calculated from depositors or the state, in line with international standards.
"We want to engage in a dialogue with the IMF. We want to improve things. This is a draft law. They want the hierarchy of responsibilities to be clearer. All the discussions are positive," Salam said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, before traveling to France.
"We want an IMF program, and we want to continue our discussions until we achieve it," he added. "International pressure is real. The longer we wait, the more people's money evaporates."
A 'deep and dark' tunnel
This marks the clearest acknowledgment yet by the prime minister of an issue with the IMF. The approach is largely backed by Banque du Liban Governor Karim Souhaid, who supports audits and asset-quality reviews but would allow part of banks' equity to remain. The IMF insists that loss absorption by shareholders be applied first and without ambiguity.
In an interview with Bloomberg the previous day, Salam responded to media reports suggesting the IMF had rejected the draft law. "The term 'rejected' is exaggerated," he said.
"The IMF said it could not approve the project as it stands and recommended some amendments. Our goal is to have an acceptable program and a law that suits the IMF, but it's not a diktat," he added. "We will negotiate and are confident we can find appropriate solutions to the outstanding issues on which the Fund has reservations."
Also in Davos, Finance Minister Yassine Jaber told Reuters it was essential to rescue a banking system hollowed out by the crisis and to prevent Lebanon from sinking further into a paralyzed economy operating largely on cash. Failure to act, he warned, would leave the country "trapped in a deep and dark tunnel" with no path back to a functioning system.
"Lebanon has become a cash economy, and the real question is whether we want to stay on the gray list" of the Financial Action Task Force, on which Lebanon was relisted in 2024, "or blindly move toward the blacklist," Jaber said.
