Morocco Sees Sharp Decline in Check Usage as Digital Payments Rise

Its use would represent only 14% at the end of 2018, while a year earlier it was 24%.

According to the Annual Report on Financial Market Infrastructures, Means of Payment, their Supervision and Financial Inclusion Initiatives, prepared by Bank Al-Maghrib (BAM), the use of checks is in sharp decline.

A situation which, according to Medias24, has allowed the transfer to maintain its first place for the third consecutive year, with 40% of exchanges against 35% in 2017. The transfer is followed of course by the bank card with 29% of the exchanges (against 26% in 2017).

Even direct debits have also exceeded checks in the total number of exchanges (15% in 2018 against 12% in 2017).

While in 2017 checks remained predominant, with 47% of the amounts exchanged, they will regress in 2018 and drop to 36%, while transfers have seen an increase to reach 50% of the exchanges.

Direct debits and card payment transactions remain, for their part, constant with respective shares of 5% and 1% of the operations, the cards being mainly used for low-value settlements, indicates the BAM Report.