According to the Association of Banks (ABL), the total value of cleared checks added a yearly 3.75% to reach $5.92B in January 2018. Similarly, the total number of checks rose by a yearly 3.07% to 1.02M checks in the first month of the year.
In details, the value and number of checks denominated in Lebanese Pounds added 13.55% and 10.89% year-on-year (y-o-y) to $1.97B and 386,542 checks, respectively. As for checks denominated in foreign currency, their number and value retreated from 640,272 checks worth $3.97B in January 2017 to 632,694 checks worth $3.95B during the same period this year.
As such, the dollarization rate of cleared checks slipped in volume and value from 64.75% and 69.63% in Jan. 2017 to 62.08% and 66.76%, respectively, in January 2018.
It is worthy to note that the number and value of returned checks rose by 20.35% and 10.91% y-o-y to 22,028 checks worth $121M over the period.
Value of Cleared Checks by January (in $B)
Source: ABL