Bounced Check Crisis Looms as Economic Pressures Mount, Central Bank Warns

Nearly 606,350 individuals issued bounced checks in 2019. And this year, despite the lockdown, 117,096 cases have already been detected. The Ministry of Finance believes that the consequences of the coronavirus on the economic and social level could explain this situation that threatens the credibility of the check in commercial transactions. Professionals in the banking sector believe that the increase in the number of banking bans over the years shows the lack of knowledge of the legal value of the checkbook, reports la Vie éco.

Contrary to what is being agitated by bank customers, not every check rejection is equated with a payment incident likely to result in a banking ban. According to the law, any non-payment of checks due to lack or insufficiency of funds is a banking ban. The director of a bank branch stated that rejections, such as the absence or non-conformity of the signature, overwriting, non-conformity of the amount in letters and figures, and others are not perceived as banking incidents.

Given the frequency of these forms of incidents, it was decided that from this year onwards, any issuer of banking bans must pay a tax penalty of 10,000 DH for individuals and 50,000 DH for legal entities, in a single payment during the year. As soon as the issuer fully regularizes his situation, Bank Al-Maghrib, at the request of the issuer’s bank, will remove the client’s name from the national file of irregular checks. After receiving his regularization certificate, the latter will be authorized to issue checks, the same source specifies.