Value of Cleared Checks Up by 2% Y-o-Y by July 2017

According to the Association of Lebanese Banks (ABL), the total number and value of cleared checks expanded by 0.7% and 2% year-on-year (y-o-y) to stand at 7.14 million (M) and $39.82 billion (B), respectively, by July 2017.

In details, the number and value of foreign currency-denominated checks slipped by 3.1% and 1.2% annually to 4.52M and $27.5B, respectively, by July 2017. Nonetheless, the volume and value of cleared checks denominated in Lebanese Pounds (LBP) grew by 7.9% and 9.9% y-o-y, to total 2.62M and $12.32B, respectively, over the same period.

As such, the dollarization rate of cleared checks declined in volume and value from 65.76% and 71.27% by July 2016 to 63.29% and 69.05%, respectively, by July this year.

It is worthy to note that the number of returned checks incrementally rose by 0.3% y-o-y to 133,321 checks, whereas the total value of returned checks contracted by 16.1% to settle at $832M over the period.

In July 2017 alone, each of the total number and value of cleared checks rose by a yearly 17.5% to reach 1.1M checks worth $6.2B. In details, the volume and value of LBP-checks cleared in July rose by 22.4% and 23.9% to reach 399,777 and $1.84B, respectively; meanwhile, the volume and value of foreign currency checks increased by 14.9% and 15% to 696,160 and $4.3B, respectively.

Value of Cleared Checks by July (in $M)

Value of Cleared Checks Up by 2% Y-o-Y by July 2017

Source: Association of Banks in Lebanon

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