The value of cleared checks hit $32.84B by June 2018 according to the Association of Lebanese Banks (ABL), down by 2.46% from the same period last year. In addition, the total number of cleared checks shrunk by 2.86% year-on-year (y-o-y) to stand at 5.88M by June 2018.
The value and the number of cleared checks in foreign currencies had both decreased by 4.22% and 5.92%, reaching $22.2B and 3.6M, respectively by June 2018.
As for cleared checks denominated in Lebanese Pounds, the value and the number of cleared checks experienced an uptick of 1.44% and 2.41% y-o-y to reach $10.63B and 2.28M, respectively.
Moreover, the share of foreign currency checks in the total value of cleared checks decreased from 68.87% in the first half of 2017 to 67.63% in the first half of 2018.
As for returned checks, their number and value grew from 112,570 checks with a value of $710M in H1 2017 to 130,046 checks worth $749M.
Value of cleared checks by June 2018
Source: ABL