The bank was founded in 1951 by Yousef Beidas and three partners as a trading company. The law in Lebanon in 1951 did not cover banking activities as they are known now and became known in Lebanon during the 1950s and 1960s thanks to a large degree to the efforts of Yousef Beidas who was named as the Architect of Lebanese Banking in the "Illustrated London News" in October 1963. In that major article entitled "The Changing Face of the Middle East" which ran over a dozen pages and was an introduction to European and North American readers to an area given little attention prior to the meteoric rise in status of oil exporting and petrodollar earning states the coverage on Yousef Beidas was a full two pages whereas, for historical comparison purposes, the then ruler of Dubai, Shaikh Rashed bin Saeed al Maktoum, father of the present ruler Shaikh Mohammad bin Rashed, was allocated a quarter page.