Georges00 wrote
Why would they even stop us from paying in LBP online?
When you buy from an international merchant, someone has to convert your LBP into USD (or Euro or whatever currency the merchant accepts) because LBP basically does not exist outside of Lebanon. For example if someone is based in USA and selling books on Amazon, they can't open a account in LBP over there to receive LBP payments.
The official rate is approx 1500 LBP / USD, this is the rate listed on the Visa and Mastercard websites so someone has to do the conversion at this rate, maybe the central bank, or your bank, I am not sure about the system but someone has to convert your LBP to USD at the official rate.
Also you could profit from this system if you have a foreign account. For example: you can easily register on Stripe, issue a fake invoice for $4000 (or the equivalent amount in LBP), pay it yourself using your Lebanese LBP card, it will be converted to USD at the official rate and go into your foreign account. There you go, you walked around all banking restrictions.
I think that LBP payments can work only inside Lebanon if you pay on a local payment gateway (one of systems which was offered by Lebanese banks) which is connected directly to an LBP account so there is no conversion
The blocked card problem is an old one, I remember a few months it was a struggle to pay hosting fees.