Tuesday 25 / March / 2025
Muscat: A total number of 387,000 unpaid cheques were reported in 2022, according to a Financial Stability Report of the Central Bank of Oman (CBO).
The CBO report said that the volume of unpaid cheques fell as compared to 2021 when there were 399,000 cases of dishonoured cheques.
With the rise of electronic payments, there is a notable decrease in the use of cheques for payments since 2018 - from about 4.7 million to 3.8 million in 2022, which indicates the transition from paper-based payments to digital payments.
The report said that “insufficient funds” were the major reason for unpaid cheques as 309,728 unpaid cheques fell under the category, accounting for 80.1 percent of all unpaid cheques. This was followed by “Account Closed / Frozen / Transferred” totaling 39,457 (10.1 percent).
In Oman, an unpaid cheque or bouncing a cheque is considered a serious offense and can lead to legal consequences, including fines and imprisonment.
The report added that some countries have initiated the implementation of partial fulfillment of cheques where it is possible to cash a cheque for an amount less than the full amount written on the cheque. While typically a cheque would bounce if the full amount to honour it was not available in the drawer’s account, after the amendments introduced in some countries, banks are required to fulfil partial amounts of the cheque equal to the amount available in the drawer’s account, unless the cheque bearer rejects the option for partial payment.
The report added that Oman is also working on modalities to introduce partial fulfillment of cheques.
This would provide mechanisms to ensure the maximum possible cheque value is collected in the fastest and simplest way possible.
