The latest monthly report of Iran's e-payment network, published by Shaparak Company, shows Saman Electronic Payment (SEP) company topped the list of payment service providers in the month to Feb. 19.
SEP, affiliated to Saman Bank, processed 21.35% of the transactions in the month followed by Beh Pardakht Mellat Company, affiliated to Bank Mellat with 20.13%.
Parsian Electronic Commerce Company of Parsian Bank, was next with 17.84% share of the total transactions, followed by Asan Pardakht Persian and Sadad companies.
More than 3.22 billion transactions worth 6,361.19 trillion rials ($24 billion) were processed by the national retail payment network in the month – up 4.16% in volume and 1.5% higher 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 ($19.6b) were logged.
However, Beh Pardakht Mellat topped the list of SPCs in terms of the share of the collective value of transactions with 19.19%. Saman Electronic Payment was second with 17.2% followed by PECCO and Iran Kish Credit Card Company.
Asan Pardakht, however, maintained the top slot in online payment, thanks to its widely used mobile application and its collaboration with major online retail outlets and service platforms. It processed 42.3% of transactions via online payment gateways.
However, the company seems to be mostly processing low-value transactions as it barely accounted for 5.4% of the total value of payments via online gateways. SEP topped the list in this regard with 33.8% share.
SEP also ranked first in terms of the total number of transactions using POS terminals and mobile payment gateways with respectively 21% and 35% share.
Twelve PSPs are authorized to operate in Iran’s digital payment industry and are mostly affiliated to banks. The central bank’s stringent regulations for setting up a PSP have discouraged new players in the lucrative market.
Shaparak also reflected on PSP performance in terms of the purpose of transactions, putting them in three payment groups for purchasing goods and services, paying bills and checking account balance.
Shaparak data also showed that the majority of clients use gateways connected to Saman for paying their utility bills.
As per the report, PECCO accounted for the least failures in payment transactions during the month.
