Lebanese Banks Hold Line Against Default, Urge Bond Swap Instead

Lebanon’s banking lobby made a last-ditch appeal to the government to avoid a debt default and instead offer a swap into new notes for all bondholders.

In the clutches of its worst financial crisis in decades, Lebanon is running out of time to decide how to handle a debt burden that economists say is no longer sustainable. It faces a choice of repaying more than $1.2 billion of Eurobonds due March 9 or restructuring liabilities to preserve dwindling foreign-exchange reserves.