According to the Association of Lebanese Banks (ABL), the value of cleared checks reached $19.26B by April 2019, down by 12.97% compared to the same period last year. Similarly, the total number of cleared checks fell by 11.53% year-on-year (y-o-y), to reach 3.48 million(M) by April 2019.
In details, the number and value of cleared checks in foreign currencies lost 18.26% y-o-y and 18.47% y-o-y, to reach 1.98M and $12.15B respectively by April 2019. In fact, the number of cleared checks denominated in foreign currencies grasped a stake of 56.88% of the total number of cleared checks by April 2019, down from 61.56% by April 2018.
Meanwhile, the number and value of cleared checks denominated in Lebanese Pounds slipped by 0.75% and 1.63% y-o-y, to reach 1.50M and $7.11B, respectively.
As for the number of returned checks, it totaled 88,933 by April 2019, up from 85,759 by April 2018. Accordingly, the share of returned checks of the total number of cleared checks rose from 2.18% by April 2018 to 2.56% by April 2019.
Value of Cleared Checks by April (in $M)
Source: ABL