Lebanon to adopt the Bloomberg trading platform

THE caretaker Lebanese cabinet agreed to adopt the Bloomberg trading platform which will replace the Sayrafa platform of former Central Bank chief Riad Salameh.

This comes after Lebanon’s interim central bank Wassim Mansouri said on Monday in Saudi Arabia that he is seeking to introduce a new currency exchange platform through Bloomberg.
The central bank had already said it would phase out its own exchange platform, known as Sayrafa, and was considering Bloomberg as a substitute following concerns about Sayrafa’s lack of transparency and governance, Reuters reported.
Sayrafa was set up in May 2021, 18 months into Lebanon’s economic meltdown. It was widely recognized as a way for the central bank, also known as BDL, to stabilize the Lebanese pound, which nevertheless continued to decline.
Lebanese authorities and international institutions have criticized Sayrafa for its lack of transparency, unsustainability, and the opportunity it created for arbitrage, particularly as the gap grew between Sayrafa’s and the parallel market.
The World Bank said buy-side Sayrafa participants may have made as much as $2.5 billion through arbitrage trades.

About the Bloomberg Trading Platform 

The Bloomberg Terminal is a computer software system provided by Bloomberg that enables professionals in the financial service sector and other industries to access Bloomberg Professional Services through which users can monitor and analyze real-time financial market data and place trades on the electronic trading platform. It was developed by employees working for  Michael Bloomberg. The system also provides news, price quotes, and messaging across its proprietary secure network. It is well known among the financial community for its black interface, which has become a recognizable trait of the service.  The first version of the terminal was released in December 1982.

Most large financial firms have subscriptions to Bloomberg Professional Services. Many exchanges charge their own additional fees for access to real-time price feeds across the terminal. The same applies to various news organizations.