Morocco recorded fewer bounced-check incidents in 2025, but their combined value increased to MAD 16.6 billion, while the value of previously unpaid checks regularized during the year fell by more than half, according to Bank Al-Maghrib’s latest annual report on payment systems.
The central bank registered 462,617 check-payment incidents, down 5.1% from 487,613 in 2024, although their value rose 2.8% from MAD 16.14 billion to MAD 16.60 billion, reversing the previous year’s decline.
Regularizations fell considerably faster. Banks recorded 104,710 incidents resolved during 2025, compared with 192,346 a year earlier, a decline of 45.6%. The corresponding value dropped from MAD 5.43 billion to MAD 2.37 billion, or 56.4%, after almost doubling in 2024.
The figures cover incidents declared to Bank Al-Maghrib’s Central Payment Incidents Registry, which records unpaid checks and monitors their subsequent regularization. The annual regularization totals do not necessarily concern checks issued or rejected during the same year.
The stock of unresolved payment incidents consequently remained substantial, reaching 3.51 million cases at the end of 2025, up 1.8% from 3.44 million in 2024. Individuals accounted for approximately 72% of these cases, or 2.5 million, while the number of people and entities prohibited from issuing checks rose from 677,000 to 691,000.
The broader clearing statistics also showed deterioration. Banks rejected 782,880 checks for all reasons in 2025, compared with 776,288 in 2024, pushing the rejection rate from 3.23% to 3.44%. Insufficient funds accounted for 52.3% of those rejections, down from 55.74% the previous year.
These broader rejection figures include payment failures for reasons other than insufficient funds and are distinct from the incidents registered by the central bank’s payment-incidents registry.
July recorded the highest number of newly declared incidents, at 43,274, followed by October with 42,742, while June registered the lowest monthly total at 33,951.
The findings come as Morocco updates its legal framework governing checks, with Law 71.24 amending the Commercial Code published in January 2026.
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