The value of cleared checks fell 4.30% during the first five months of the year, which might be due to lower business spending, and the fact that people are possibly substituting payments via checks with various payment cards and e-payments. In fact, the number of checks cleared by Banque du Liban amounted to 5.09M worth $28.84B by May 2015, compared to a larger number of 5.32M checks valued at $31.59B recorded a year earlier.
Checks in foreign currencies weighed heavily on the fall of total value of cleared checks, as the former shrank by 12.52% to $21.11B compared to $24.13B by May 2014. In contrast, the value of checks denominated in Lebanese Pounds improved by 3.68% to reach $7.73B. In turn, the dollarization rate of checks retreated from 76.38% to 73.18%.
The value of returned checks constituted 2.27%, or $655M of the total checks, compared to 1.90% by May last year.
In the month of May alone, the value of cleared checks declined by 6.84% from May 2014 to stand at $5.99B. The value of checks denominated in foreign currencies (representing 73.87% of the total) went down by 12.54% y-o-y to $4.42B. In addition, the value of checks in LBP declined by 3.44% to $1.56B.
Value of Cleared Checks Y-o-Y by May ($M)
Source: ABL