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 1,881,673 checks from June 2021 to 1,013,924 checks by June 2022. Consequently, the value of total cleared checks decreased yearly by 18.07% to reach $16.88B by June 2022.
In more details, the value of checks in LBP increased remarkably from $9.22B by June 2021 to reach $11B by June 2022, while value of checks in foreign currencies decreased significantly by 48.34% year on year (YOY) to reach $5.87B by June 2022.
Moreover, the volumes of cleared checks in Lebanese Pounds and foreign currencies witnessed significant yearly drops of 38.93% and 52.17% respectively to settle at 525,372 and 488,552 checks, by June 2022.
Accordingly, the dollarization of cleared checks in terms of value declined from 55.23% by June 2021 to 34.82% by June 2022. In the same token, the dollarization rate of checks in terms of volume fell by June 2022, to reach 48.18% instead of 54.28% by June 2021.
Notably, the number of returned checks fell substantially by 54.45% YOY to stand at 6,997 checks while the value of returned checks retreated by 46.51% YOY to reach $147M by June 2022. Noting that banker checks are recently being more used to conduct check payment transactions, thus decreasing the number of returned checks.
Value of Cleared Checks by Currency, by June (in $B)
Source: ABL, BLOMINVEST