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 2,948,730 checks from November 2021 to 1,480,354 checks by November 2022. Consequently, the value of total cleared checks decreased yearly by 1.27% to reach $33.17B by November 2022.
In more details, the value of checks in LBP increased remarkably from $16.9B in November 2021 to reach $23.46B by November 2022, while value of checks in foreign currencies decreased significantly by 41.85% year on year (YOY) to reach $9.71B by November 2022.
Moreover, the volumes of cleared checks in Lebanese Pounds and foreign currencies witnessed significant yearly drops of 42.88% and 56.13% respectively to settle at 809,104 and 671,250 checks, by November 2022.
Accordingly, the dollarization of cleared checks in terms of value declined from 49.7% in November 2021 to 29.27% by November 2022. In the same token, the dollarization rate of checks in terms of volume fell from 51.89% in November 2021 to 45.34% in November 2022.
Notably, the number of returned checks fell substantially by 55.76% YOY to stand at 10,493 checks while the value of returned checks retreated by 41.53% YOY to reach $309M by November 2022. In fact, banker checks are recently being more used to conduct check payment transactions, thus decreasing the number of returned checks. Furthermore, checks are less accepted as a mode of payment since the economy is heading towards full cash-dollarization.
Value of Cleared Checks by Currency, by November (in $B)
Source: ABL, BLOMINVEST