In its 2018 survey of the Top 100 banks in the Arab world, The Banker magazine included 11 Lebanese commercial banks on its list. In comparison, there were 21 banks from the UAE, 12 banks from Saudi Arabia, 10 from each of Bahrain and Qatar, nine from Kuwait, seven from each of Morocco and Oman, six from Egypt, five from Jordan, and one bank from each of Algeria and Tunisia.

The Banker indicated that the aggregate Tier One capital of the 11 Lebanese banks reached $17.1bn at the end of 2017, constituting an increase of 6.6% from $16bn at end-2016, and representing 5.1% of the aggregate Tier One capital of the Top 100 Arab banks that stood at $334bn at end-2017. Banks in Saudi Arabia accounted for 28.5% of the aggregate Tier One capital of the Top 100 Arab banks at end-2017, followed by those in the UAE (25.6%), Qatar (13.4%), Kuwait (8%), Bahrain (5.6%), Morocco (3.9%), Egypt (3.7%), Oman (3.1%), Jordan (2.4%), Algeria (0.6%) and Tunisia (0.1%).

Also, the aggregate assets of the 11 Lebanese banks reached $216.8bn at the end of 2017, up by 6.1% from a year earlier, and representing 7.7% of the Top 100 Arab banks' aggregate assets that reached $2,809bn at end-2017. In parallel, banks in the UAE accounted for 24.4% of the Top 100 Arab banks' aggregate assets at end-2017, followed by banks in Saudi Arabia (21.1%), Qatar (14.9%), Kuwait (8.5%), Egypt (6.1%), Morocco (5.6%), Bahrain (5.3%), Oman and Jordan (2.6% each), Algeria (0.9%) and Tunisia (0.2%). As such, the 11 Lebanese banks' Tier One capital-to-assets ratio stood at 7.9% at the end of 2017, compared to the Top 100 Arab banks' ratio of 11.9% and relative to the Top 1000 global banks' ratio of 6.7%.