As the Lebanese community continues on shifting its preferences in payment methods in favor of electronic payments, and as Lebanon is witnessing lower consumption and spending levels, cleared checks decreased in both value and number.
According to the Association of Banks in Lebanon, the value of cleared checks decreased by 9.19% year-on-year (y-o-y). In details, the number of checks cleared by Banque du Liban reached 6.16M with a value of $33.8B by June 2016, compared to 6.18M checks worth $37.23B.
On a different note, and despite the continuing political deadlock more confidence is building up in the Lebanese currency, hence less dependency on the US Dollar. This was translated in a lower dollarization rate of checks, which decreased from 74.94% by June 2015 to 71.24% this year. Consequently, total value of checks in foreign currencies witnessed a decline of 13.68% y-o-y by June 2016. In opposition , the value of checks denominated in Lebanese Pounds rose by a yearly 4.31% to reach $9.73B.
As for the value of returned checks, they also registered a decline of 10.03% to reach $873M by June 2016.
For the month of June alone, the value of cleared checks decreased by 32.91% y-o-y to $5.62B. The value of checks denominated in foreign currencies (representing 65.48% of the total) went down by an annual 5.87% to $4.08B. On the other hand, the value of checks in LBP decreased by 1.55% y-o-y to $1.57B.
Value of Cleared Checks by June ($M)
Source: ABL