Cleared checks down for first time since 2012. Fall driven by sluggish real economy

The value of cleared checks in lira and foreign currencies fell by 6.6 percent to a total of LL104,858 billion ($70 billion) last year compared with 2014, according to the Association of Banks in Lebanon (ABL).

The drop was 3.5 percent in terms of number of cleared checks, which totaled 12.5 million in 2015.

Marwan Barakat, Head of Research at Bank Audi, said this was the first drop since 2012 and is due to the sluggishness in the real economy, which was reflected in a weakening i...

Article details