More than 586,000 checks bounced in the fourth Iranian calendar month to July 22, down 8.4% on the month before.
The checks were worth 345 trillion rials ($1.2 million), indicating 7.7% decline in value on a monthly basis, the Central Bank of Iran reported.
In terms of volume and value, bad checks accounted for 9.3% and 10.4%, respectively, of all drawn checks in the month.
In the corresponding period last year 9.2% and 11.9% of the volume and value of all drawn checks were rejected.
A total of 165,000 checks worth 142 trillion rials ($489 million) bounced in Tehran Province, where the capital is located, accounting for 8.5% and 8.2% of thte volume and value of drawn checks.
Kohgilouyeh-Boyerahmad Province topped the list of provinces with the highest ratio of bad checks to transacted checks at 13.2%.
Kurdistan Province was next at 12.7% and North Khorasan Province and Lorestan Province jointly ranked third at 12.3%.
Provinces with the lowest ratio were Gilan at 6.5%, Alborz and Khouzestan 8.2% and Golestan and Mazandaran 8.8%.
Insufficient funds in the accounts of issuers were the main reason why the checks were rejected.
Drawn Checks
More than 6.3 million checks worth 3,320 trillion rials ($11.44 billion) were drawn in the month. The number of transacted checks declined 6.4% and the value was down 3% on the earlier month.
Out of the total checks drawn in the month, 1.9 million worth 1,724 trillion rials ($5.94 billion) were issued in Tehran Province.
Tehran Province accounted for 30.7% and 51.9% of all drawn checks, respectively. Isfahan Province was second both in volume and value, representing 10.9% of all drawn checks and 6.6% of the value of checks issued in the month.
Bank customers cashed an estimated 5.7 million checks worth 2,975 ($10.2 billion) during the month, down 6.1% in volume and 7.4% in value on the month before.
Around 429,000 cashier checks worth 2,040 trillion rials were cleared by banks -- 7.4% less in volume and 29.9% in value.
More than 142,000 checks worth 1,363 trillion rials were cashed in Tehran.
A cashier's check is a check guaranteed by a bank, drawn on the bank's own funds and signed by a cashier. Cashier's checks are treated as guaranteed funds because the bank, rather than the purchaser, is responsible for paying the amount.
The CBI report only covered interbank checks processed by Chekavak, a CBI-affiliated electronic check processing system, and did not include those circulated within branches of any single bank.
