According to the Association of Lebanese Banks (ABL), the value of cleared checks stood at $38.67B by July 2018, contracting from $39.82B over the same period last year. The total number of cleared checks also declined from 7.14M to 6.91M by July 2018.
The decrease mainly came on the back of the annual 4.85% and 6.44% downticks in the value and number of checks in foreign currencies to $26.16B and 4.23M, respectively, over the period.
Meanwhile, the value and number of cleared checks denominated in Lebanese Pounds grew by 1.5% and 2.06% year-on-year (y-o-y) to reach $12.51B and 2.68M, respectively.
The share of foreign currency checks from the total value of cleared checks fell from 69.05% by July 2017 to 67.65% by July 2018.
As for the returned checks, their number and value grew to 152,929 checks worth $885M by July 2018, up from 133,321 checks amounting to a value of $832M in the same period last year.
Value of cleared checks by July
Source: ABL