According to the Association of Lebanese Banks (ABL), the value of cleared checks recorded a yearly decrease by 1.45% to reach $61.08 Billion (B) by November 2018. Likewise, the total number of cleared checks fell by 2.10% year-on-year to stand at 10.90M by November 2018.
In details, while the volume and value of cleared checks denominated in Lebanese Pounds respectively grew by 2.81% and 2.90% y-o-y, amounting to 4.29M and $20.11B by November 2018, the number and value of foreign currency-denominated checks declined by 5.05% and 3.45% y-o-y, to 6.61M and $40.97B, respectively, by November 2018. As such, the dollarization rate of cleared checks slipped in volume and value from 62.54% and 68.47% by Nov. 2017 to 60.66% and 67.08%, respectively, by November this year.
It is worthy to note that the number and value of returned checks recorded a significant y-o-y rise by 20.60% and 14.52% settle at 254,257 checks and $1.47B, respectively.
For the month of November alone, the volume and value of cleared checks decreased by 2.82% and 3.79% y-o-y to 973,927 and $5.35B. The value of checks denominated in foreign currencies (representing 64.99% of the total) and Lebanese Pound went down by an annual 0.26% and 5.59% to $1.87B and $3.48B, respectively.
Value of Cleared Checks by November in Millions of USD
Source: Association of Banks in Lebanon