According to the data published by the Association of Lebanese Banks’ (ABL), the total number of cleared checks in the Lebanese financial system slumped from 5,382,841 checks by November 2020 to 2,948,730 checks by November 2021. Moreover, the value of total cleared checks declined yearly by 31.5% to reach $33.6B by November 2021.
In details, the value of checks in LBP dropped by 6.08% year-on-year (YOY) to reach $16.9 M, while value of checks in foreign currencies decreased by 46.26% YOY to reach $16.7 M by November 2021.
The volumes of cleared checks denominated in Lebanese Pounds and foreign currencies witnessed significant yearly drops of 46.29% and 44.20% to settle at 1,416,538 and 1,532,192 checks, respectively by November 2021.
Accordingly, the dollarization of cleared checks in terms of value went down from last year’s 42% to 32.96% by November 2021. In contrast, the dollarization rate of checks in terms of volume rose from last year’s 51.01% to 51.96% by November 2021.
Notably, the number of returned checks fell by a substantial 77.19% YOY to 23,972 checks while the value of the returned checks retreated by 44.25% YOY over the same period to reach $528.03M by November 2021. Noting that banker checks are more often used to conduct check payment transactions have declined in use, therefore the number of returned checks have considerably declined.
Value of Cleared Checks by Currency, by November (in $B)
