Iran’s banking sector witnessed a drop in the volume but a rise in the total value of checks that bounced in the closing month of the last fiscal year (ended March 20, 2018), according to the latest figures. A total of over 1.4 million checks worth 185 trillion rials ($4.4 billion) bounced over the period, registering a 3.1% fall in volume and a 23.7% jump in value, IBENA reported. The figures stood at 479,000 and $118 trillion rials ($2.8 billion) respectively for the capital Tehran. Bounced checks accounted for 13.9% of the total volume and 21.1% of the value of checks drawn by Iranians. Over 691 trillion rials ($16.4 billion), the combined value of 8.6 million checks, were cleared, equivalent to 78.9% and 86.1% of the total volume and value of processed checks, indicating a 19% and 5.7% month-on-month increase respectively. The massive pile of bounced checks stems from a dysfunctional check-processing mechanism in the embattled banking sector. The Central Bank of Iran, the sector’s regulator, has recently introduced a new scheme to streamline this mechanism.
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