Data released by Shaparak, the company in charge of supervising the domestic payment network, show more than 121.9 million bank cards were used at least once during the first sixth months of the current fiscal year (started in March).
The number was up 2.69% on the month before when it was 118.8 million. Debit cards topped the list accounting for 95.28% (116.23 million) of the total active cards.
More than 22.1% of the debit cards were issued by Bank Melli followed by Bank Sepah with 12% and Bank Mellat and Bank Saderat Iran each at 11%.
The share of credit cards increased 17.14% to 0.31% of the total bank cards during the month. According to Shaparak, 380,388 credit cards were used at least once in the said month.
Bank Melli was the issuer of 64% of the credit cards, followed by Bank Sepah 13.2% and Bank Mellat 8%. Gift cards posted 4.39% increase.
The company said 5.37 million gift cards were used at least once during the month to Sept 22. More than 18.8% of the gift cards were issued by Bank Mellat, Bank Melli Iran was next with 12.93% and Parsian Bank 12.49%.
The domestic e-payment network processed more than 3.42 billion transactions in the month, marking an 8.49% growth compared to the month before and 17.38% higher on the same period in the last fiscal year.
The value of transactions increased 32.75% y/y to 6,470 trillion rials ($23.7 billion) -- 20% higher than the previous month.
The giant company offers services via internet, cellphones and point of sale devices. POS devices remain the most favorite payment tool.
More than 9.5 million active POS terminals were used accounting for 75% of the total payment gateways. POS terminals collectively processed 3 billion plus transactions in the month worth 5,563 trillion rials ($20.4b).
