Customers Rights & Duties
In compliance with the Basic Circular number 134 of the Central Bank, Saradar Bank SAL is pleased to inform you of the rights
and duties of its customers as per the following:
First: Customer’s Rights
To take cognizance of the terms, conditions and details of the product or service, and to request ample explanations to be
sure that he/she has understood them and can abide by them.
To obtain from the concerned employee a clear, ample and simplified explanation about the financial services and products
with different risk levels.
To obtain from the concerned employee a professional and clear answer to any question concerning an ambiguous clause or condition.
To request the use of Arabic in any document, correspondence or transaction with the bank or financial institution.
To request to read and obtain in advance a copy of each document and text referred to any contract to be signed with the
bank or financial institution.
To obtain and retain a copy of the contracts and documents signed by the customer, without bearing any additional cost.
To request the bank or financial institution to determine the actual cost of the product or service, including the actual
insurance cost and the computational method of the lending or deposit interest rate.
To choose freely an insurance company among, at least, five companies that are accepted by the bank or financial institution
and mentioned in a written list, in case obtaining the product or service is contingent
upon the submission of an insurance policy to the bank or financial institution.
To obtain any product or service, provided it is suitable with the customer’s request, profile and perception of the likely
financial risks associated to the product or service.
To obtain, for each product or service, a periodic detailed statement of account.
Refuse to sign a blank or incomplete Form and make sure all the required fields and figures in the Form to be signed by the
customer are correct and complete.
To submit a claim about any service or product, and request from the bank or financial institution an explanation on the
claim submission procedure, the time limit needed to be notified of the claim outcome,
and the mechanism applied to submit the claim to other authorities whenever the customer
is not convinced of the claim outcome.
Second: Customer’s Duties
Provide true, complete and accurate information when filling out any Form provided by the bank or financial institution,
and refrain from providing any false information.
Disclose all financial obligations when applying for a product or service, without prejudice to the rights conferred to customers
by the Banking Secrecy Law.
Update the personal information submitted to the bank or financial institution, on a continuous basis and whenever required
to do so.
Comply with the terms and conditions governing the chosen service or product.
Promptly notify the bank or financial institution of any unknown operation on his/her account.
Provide the bank or financial institution with his/her home address, work address, email, ordinary mail, and telephone number,
and report any change in this information to enable the bank or financial institution
to contact the concerned customer personally and thus guarantee the privacy of information.
Third: Instructions to the Customer
Do not provide any other party, under any circumstances, with any details about your bank account or any other banking or
critical information.
Whenever facing financial difficulties preventing you from meeting your obligations or paying your installments in due time,
refer to the bank or financial institution in order to find out the best options, including
the rescheduling of obligations.
Be careful when granting a proxy to a third party to complete your banking and financial transactions, by clearly determining
the powers delegated under this proxy.
Complaint Form
Complaint Procedure
Dear Customer & Walk-in Client,
In our aim to provide you with the best quality of service, and as per BDL Circular 134 dated 12/2/2015, we, at Saradar Bank,
welcome any comment from your side. In this respect, we have put at your disposal a simple and
straight-forward complaint handling process, summarized as follows:
Submit your complaint by:
Filling the complaint form and depositing it in the Complaint Box available in all Saradar branches, or
Filling the electronic complaint form on our Website: www.saradarbank.com, or
Calling our Call Center on +9611214666, or
Sending your complaint via mail, to the Head Office, attention:
Customer Protection Unit
Saradar Bldg., Charles Malek Avenue, Ashrafieh, P.O.Box: 16-5766, Beirut, Lebanon
Customer Protection Unit
Saradar Bldg., Charles Malek Avenue, Ashrafieh, P.O.Box: 16-5766, Beirut, Lebanon
The Customer Protection Unit, located in the Head Office, receives the complaints:
From branches sending all complaints without opening the envelopes.
Directly from the system, for complaints submitted online.
From the Call Center where calls are recorded and forwarded.
Upon receiving your complaint, the Customer Protection Unit contacts you to collect any further
information needed to resolve the issue.
Please note that the Customer Protection Unit will get back to you within a maximum of 15 days with the result of the complaint.
Additional supporting documents may be requested from you, which might lead to an extension of
another 15 days to solve the issue.
Your approval on the closure of the complaint will be documented by the Bank; accordingly, should
you not take the initiative to receive our formal response, the Bank will send its response
through regular mail in compliance with the Law.
Common Reporting Standards
Dear Client,
The decisions of the international community aiming at increasing and improving cooperation between countries in tax matters
are seeing profound changes for stakeholders in the financial services sector. One aspect
of this intergovernmental policy on tax transparency is the roll-out of a program for the
automatic exchange of banking and financial account information between several countries
under the umbrella of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that
was joined by Lebanon in 2016. Saradar Bank is committed to adhere to the local and international
regulations on tax evasion and reporting requirements.
Please find below the highlights of the latest developments.
The Lebanese Parliament and the Central Bank of Lebanon (“BDL”) have committed to undertake
first exchange of information in the context of the Common Reporting Standards (CRS)
in September 2018. The main regulatory directives can be found on http://bdl.gov.lb/laws-and-circulars.html
and are as follows:
Law 43 on “Exchange of Tax Information” issued on November 24, 2015
BDL Basic Circular 138 on “Exchange of Tax Information” issued on August 5, 2016
However, proposed amendments to the above existing laws and regulations are currently under discussion and expected to be
issued prior to year-end 2016. It is also anticipated that the exchange will cover information
for the period starting from January 1, 2017.
Saradar Bank sal is proactively monitoring these developments in order to be fully compliant with these regulations. We consider
it important to inform all of our clients of these latest developments.
The OECD has developed a Common Reporting Standard (“CRS”) on the basis of which the tax authorities of participating countries
will exchange information about banking and financial accounts held with their financial
institutions.
The key details you should be aware of regarding the CRS are as follows:
The CRS is a new international regulation under which participating countries (and only these) will exchange information
with each other for tax purposes. This information will be exchanged electronically,
and will include details of the assets and income of bank accounts held by individuals
and entities, including trusts and foundations that are resident for tax purposes
in participating countries, as well as information relating to account holders, beneficial
owners and/or controlling persons.
Today, 101 countries have committed to implementing the CRS, including every member state of the EU and all major countries
in Asia and Latin America. The complete list of countries can be found on the following
link: AEOI-commitments
The information must be reported in the calendar year following the year to which the information relates and during which
it was collected.
It is anticipated that in 2018, all banks based in Lebanon will, for the first time, report the required information that
has been collected between January 1, 2017 and December 31, 2017. The data will be
sent to the local tax authorities of clients’ tax domiciles, as per a mechanism to
be defined under the amended laws and regulations to be issued.
The information that the banks must share with tax authorities, as per OECD requirements,
are as follows:
The identifying information related to each account holder (individuals and entities, including trusts and foundations) and/or
each controlling person (e.g. the beneficial owner, settlor, beneficiary
or protector). For each person concerned, this information shall include
the name, address, date of birth, country of residence and taxpayer identification
number (“TIN “).
The financial information related to the activity of the account concerned and the account status. This information includes
details of the value/balance of the bank account, dividends and interest
payments.
As a general principle under CRS, banks will report this information to the relevant Lebanese authorities for clients who
have been identified by the said banks as being resident for tax purposes in a country that
has agreed to automatically exchange information with the Lebanese authorities.
As a valued customer, we kindly ask you to maintain your relationship manager constantly informed on any update relevant
to your personal information.
Should you have any questions about the contents of this letter, please do not hesitate to contact your relationship manager.
Please note that this communication is for information only and shall not be considered in
any case as tax advice.
Lists of Tariffs
Please find below our list of tariffs