MUSCAT: A total of 399,000 cheques with a face value totaling around OMR 656 million were “bounced” in 2021 due to insufficient funds, the Central Bank of Oman (CBO) said.
However, due to the rise in electronic alternative payments there is a remarkable decline in the use of cheques for payments in the last two years. “In 2021, 3.8 million cheques were used, while in 2020, four million cheques were used compared to 4.7 million cheques in 2019,” the CBO said in its latest Financial Stability Report.
“Moreover, the percentage of unpaid cheques to the total cheques presented in the system decreased by 10.6 percent in 2021,” CBO stated.
The volume of returned cheques in the system fell from 485,000 in 2020 to 399,000 in 2021.
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“Nonetheless, “Insufficient Funds” still led the list for reasons behind the unpaid cheques with a total volume of 311,985 and accounting for 78.2 percent of all unpaid cheques,” the apex bank said.
Bounced cheques continue to top the list of most common crimes committed, with over 7,000 cases recorded in the country in 2021.
