Data published by Iran’s payment settlement network, Shaparak, show online payment gateways and point-of-sale terminals processed more than 3.22 billion transactions in the calendar month to Feb. 19.
Total transactions reached 6,361.19 trillion rials ($24 billion), showing 4.16% rise in volume and up 1.5% in value on a monthly basis.
The volume and value of transactions jumped 9.72% and 24.94%, respectively, on the corresponding month last year when 2.93 billion transactions worth 5,091.31 trillion rials ($19.6 billion) were registered.
Consumer price inflation explains part of annual rise in the value of transactions. However, when adjusted for inflation, the real value fell 7.71% over the same period last year. After factoring out monthly inflation, the real value of transactions was down 0.6% on the month.
The national network offers services via the internet, cellphone and POS terminals. With more than 10.71 million payment instruments operating in the period, the total number of active instruments was down 17.77% on the earlier month.
The decline was attributed to mobile instruments, which dropped by a massive 59.9% to reach 601,580. The number of active internet payment gateways fell 50.11% and point-of-sale devices in shops slipped 5.96% during the month.
The sharp decline in the number of online and mobile payment gateways comes after the implementation of new regulations, as per which online shops need to obtain permission from the E-Commerce Development Center of Iran in order to use payment gateways.
As is usually the case, POS devices topped the list of instruments accounting for 86.7% of the market share. This was followed by online payment gateways with 7.66% and mobile instruments 5.61%.
POS terminals accounted for 91.7% of the total transactions processing 2.95 billion transactions worth 5,526.65 ($21.25 billion) during the month.
Online gateways were next at 4.99% and mobile instruments represented 3.32% of the total transactions.
In terms of the purpose of transactions, purchasing goods and paying for services was at the top at 87.79%.
Transactions for buying cell phone recharges and checking account balance accounted for 7.51% and 4.7%, respectively.
As for the penetration rate of payment tools, the report said the number of instruments per 10,000 adults (above 18 years old) stood at 1,733 during the month.
The highest penetration rate was for POS devices with 1,503 and mobile instruments lowest with 97 instruments per 10,000 adults.
Tehran Province topped the list of provinces with the highest number of POS terminals. There were 1.76 million active terminals in the capital, which indicates 8% fall on the earlier month.
This was followed by Khorasan Razavi with 719,334 and Isfahan 612,106 active devices. Ilam had the lowest number of POS devices at 62,669.
