More than 2.8 billion transactions worth 4,839.19 trillion rials ($17.92 billion) were processed by the national payment settlement network, Shaparak, during the last calendar month (Sept.22-Oct. 21)
The transactions indicated 4.12% decline in volume and down 0.74% in value on monthly basis, the Shaparak website reported.
However, the volume and value of transactions rose 23.78% and 90.9%, respectively, compared to the same period last year when 2.26 billion transactions worth 2,534.96 trillion rials ($9.3b) were processed.
The annual rise in value is partially due to rising inflation. Increase in accepting instruments and debit cards plus the growing inclination of the public to use assorted electronic payment instruments contributed to the increase in Shaparak payments.
When adjusted for inflation, the real value of transactions rose 34.98% compared to the same period last year. After deducting inflation, the real value of monthly transactions fell 7.27%.
With more than 11.96 million payment instruments active in the mentioned period, the total number of instruments grew 4.2% compared to the earlier month.
The rise was mainly due to internet payment gateways, which grew 16.71% to reach 1.58 million. The number of point-of-sale devices in shops and mobile instruments rose 2.78% and 0.91% during the month, respectively.
POS Atop
As is usually the case, POS devices topped the list of instruments accounting for 74.95% of the market share.
This was followed by online payment gateways at 13.26% and mobile instruments 11.8%. POS devices accounted for 90.38% of the total number of transactions by processing 2.53 billion transactions with the total value of 4,332.7 trillion rials ($16.04b) during the month.
Online gateways were next accounting for 5.66% of the total transactions and mobile instruments represented 3.96% of the total.
The report indicates that as for the purpose of transactions, purchasing goods and paying for services had the lion’s share of transactions at 86.98%.
Transactions for buying cell phone recharges and checking account balances respectively accounted for 8.29% and 4.73%.
As for the penetration rate of payment tools, the report showed that the number of instruments per 10,000 adults (above 18 years old) was 1,970 in the month.
The highest penetration rate was for POS devices with 1,476 and mobile instruments the lowest with 232 instruments per 10,000 adults.
