Check Clearing Activity Down in 2015

According to the Association of Lebanese Banks (ABL), the number and the value of cleared checks respectively declined by a yearly 3.51% and 7.31% to 12.51 million checks worth $72.03B.

Cleared checks denominated in foreign currency saw their number fall by 6.16% year-on-year to 8.39 million checks and their value decline by 10.98% year-on-year to $53.12B.

As for cleared check in Lebanese Pounds, they increased in number and value from 4.02 million checks worth $18.03B in 2014 to 4.12 million checks worth $18.91B in 2015.

Accordingly, the dollarization of cleared checks fell from 68.98% in 2014 to 67.09% in 2015.

The share of returned checks in the total number of cleared checks declined from 1.98% in 2014 to 1.88% in 2015. 

Value of Cleared Checks (in $M)

Source: ABL