The nationwide payment settlement network in Iran, Shaparak, processed more than 2.691 billion payments worth 4,190.8 trillion rials ($16.37 billion based on open market forex rates) in the last calendar month to Dec 21.
Transactions were up 19.13% in volume and 50.16% in value compared to the 2.259 billion transactions worth at 2,790 trillion rials ($10.9 billion) handled by Shaparak during the same period last year.
Shaparak said rise in the number transactions was due largely to the increase in payment receiving instruments and debit cards plus the growing tendency among the people to use plastic cards instead of cash.
Shaparak also presented figures in real value terms to adjust for inflation. Accordingly, the real value of transactions registered 3.71% growth YOY.
With more than 12.37 million payment instruments operating in the reviewed month, the total number of instruments showed 19.74% growth compared to previous year's 10.33 million.
The number of payment gateways grew by 3.6% during the ninth month, Shaparak figures show. The rise was mainly attributed to point-of-sale terminals, which grew 4.15% to reach 9.48 million. The number of mobile platforms and internet payment gateways rose 1.06% and 2.87%, respectively.
POS on Top
In terms of market share, POS devices were at the top with 76.63%. Online gateways were next with 11.75% followed by mobile phone payment gateways at 10.62%.
POS devices accounted for 89.47% of the total transactions processing 2.4 billion transactions worth 3,564.1 trillion rials ($13.92 billion) in one month.
Online gateways were next accounting for 6.44% of the total transactions and mobile instruments represented 4.09%. In terms of services offered by Shaparak, it said 86.11% of transactions were related to “buying goods and services”.
“Buying cellphone recharges and paying bills” accounted for 8.69% of all processed transactions. More than 5.2% of the transactions were conducted for “checking account balances”.
As for the penetration rate of payment tools, the report said there were 2,037 instruments per 10,000 adults (above 18 years old) in the month. POS devices had the highest and internet instruments the lowest penetration rates with 1,560 and 239 instruments per 10,000 adults, respectively.
As usual Tehran province was at the top in the number of POS terminals. There were 1.93 million active POS devices in the metropolis up 2.89% compared to the month before.
Khorasan Razavi Province was second with 727,184 and Isfahan had 663.043 active devices. Ilam Province with 68.144 devices was at the end.
The number of cashless transactions has been growing steadily. CBI data show increase in growth of electronic payment tools and their value, which likely is largely due to the Covid-19 lockdowns as more people order goods and services online.
Shaparak’s report did not include data about the share of in-store POS terminals and wireless POS devices, which can help reveal more about the people’s behavior during the lockdowns and closures of inessential businesses that have hammered the economy in more ways than one.
Iran announced widespread restrictions during most of autumn to contain the third wave of Covid-19 that at its worst was taking the lives of 500 people a day.
Close to 1,231,429 coronavirus cases were reported in Iran on Friday with the death toll rising to 55,337, making it the hardest hit by the virus in the Middle East.
