Data released by Shaparak, the company in charge of supervising Iran's domestic payment network, show more than 124 million bank cards were used at least once during the last month in the previous fiscal year (ended March 20).
The number was up 5.67% compared to the month before, when it was 117.43 million, the company said in a report seen on its website.
Gift cards, unsurprisingly, posted 20.33% growth during the month. Gift cards issued by banks have become popular when celebrating Norouz, the Iranian New Year, due to the high and rising price of gold coins in recent years.
The company said 7.2 million gift cards were used at least once during the month to March 20. Seventeen percent of gift cards were issued by Bank Melli, Bank Mellat was next with 15% followed by Parsian Bank at 10%.
Debit cards were the most common alone accounting for 93.9% (116.63 million) of total active bank cards. Total debit cards grew by 4.35% during the period.
The share of credit cards decreased 4.49% to 0.19% of the total bank cards during the month.
Credit cards are still not a norm in Iran and for long were limited to VIPs. But now that seems to be changing. CBI policy of promoting credit cards as an instrument for microloan is influencing banks' decision to rethink.
Bank Melli Iran was the issuer of 22% of total credit cards, followed by Bank Mellat 11.52% and Bank Saderat Iran 11.01%.
More than 3.23 billion transactions worth 5,822.06 trillion rials ($23.3 billion) were processed by the payment settlement company in the last month of the fiscal year. Compared to the earlier month, it was 9.9% higher in volume and up 14.35% in value.
The upsurge was bigger on an annualized basis. The number of transactions rose 41.6% compared to the same period last year when transactions took a drubbing amid lockdowns and mass businesses closures due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Payment services in Iran are offered via three main instruments, namely the internet, cell phone and point-of-sale terminals. With more than 12.62 million payment instruments active in the period, the total number of instruments rose 0.38% compared to the earlier month.
The rise was mainly attributed to point-of-sale terminals, which grew 0.52% to reach 9.6 million. Mobile instruments rose 0.38% while internet payment gateways were down 0.41%.
