Legal Analysis of the Development of Electronic Checks in Iran: Examining Structural Barriers, Legislative Challenges, and Requirements for Compliance with Standards

The aim of the present study was to analyze the legal aspects of the development of electronic checks in Iran and to examine the structural barriers, legislative challenges, and requirements for compliance with standards. This study is applied in terms of its purpose and exploratory in nature, and has been analyzed with a mixed (qualitative-quantitative) approach. In the first stage, a qualitative method and semi-structured interviews were used to identify the components of the model. In the qualitative part, 17 experts from the banking, economic, and academic fields were selected using a purposeful method. Qualitative methods of content analysis and structural-interpretive modeling (ISM) were used to analyze the data in the qualitative part. Subsequently, a quantitative method with a PLS structural equation modeling approach was used to fit the model designed in the qualitative part. The findings included 56 open codes, 22 basic themes, and 8 organizing themes, including the effects of electronic checks on reducing bounced checks and improving financial transparency, compliance with international standards, criminal challenges and criminalization of violations related to electronic checks, structural challenges, factors that resolve legal ambiguities in accepting electronic checks, amendments to the check issuance law and legislative challenges, requirements for the legal development of electronic checks, and requirements for the technical development of electronic checks. The results showed that the components obtained from the research can be effective in the development of electronic checks in Iran.