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 2,158,475 checks from July 2021 to 1,123,318 checks by July 2022. Consequently, the value of total cleared checks decreased yearly by 19.05% to reach $19.35B by July 2022.
In more details, the value of checks in LBP increased remarkably from $11.07B in July 2021 to reach $12.7B by July 2022, while value of checks in foreign currencies decreased significantly by 48.17% year on year (YOY) to reach $6.65B by July 2022.
Moreover, the volumes of cleared checks in Lebanese Pounds and foreign currencies witnessed significant yearly drops of 41.42% and 53.61% respectively to settle at 586,298 and 537,020 checks, by July 2022.
Accordingly, the dollarization of cleared checks in terms of value declined from 53.67% in July 2021 to 34.37% by July 2022. In the same token, the dollarization rate of checks in terms of volume fell by July 2022, to reach 47.81% instead of 53.64% by July 2021.
Notably, the number of returned checks fell substantially by 54.97% YOY to stand at 7,756 checks while the value of returned checks retreated by 41.38% YOY to reach $180M by July 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 July (in $B)
Source: ABL, BLOMINVEST