Lebanon's banking association on Wednesday criticised what it described as "arbitrary and illegal measures" being taken against lenders, saying these threatened to "topple the banking sector".

Lebanon's Fransabank on Wednesday closed all of its branches after a judicial order freezing its assets, a Fransabank source told Reuters, in a legal dispute with a man seeking to unlock funds stuck in the Lebanese banking system.

Lebanese banks have frozen most savers out of their hard currency deposits since a financial meltdown in 2019, but the controls were never formalised in law and have been challenged in courts.

(Reporting by Thomas Perry Writing by Maher Chmaytelli Editing by David Goodman )