An estimated 3.547 billion retail transactions were processed by the domestic e-payment network, known as Shaparak, in the second month of the calendar year to May 20.
The transactions were worth 6,677 trillion rials ($20.93 billion) – up 10.9% in volume 22.77% in value on the month before, the company website reported.
Collective value of transactions jumped 39.07% on the same month of last year when 3.02 billion transactions worth 4,801 trillion rials ($15.05b) were processed. In volume terms it showed 17.44% growth y/y.
Shaparak presents figures in real value terms to adjust for inflation. However, when adjusted for inflation, the real value of transactions increased 18.6% on a monthly basis.
However, the real value was down 0.17% from the same month last year when factoring out annual inflation. As per new figures released by the Statistical Center of Iran, the consumer price index during the month to May 20 grew by 3.5% on a monthly basis and 39.3% compared with the same period last year.
In terms of services offered by the network in the month under review, 88.07% of the transactions were for buying goods and services. Buying cellphone recharges and paying bills was second accounting for 7.13% of the services while 4.8% of the transactions were for checking bank account balances.
The nationwide network failed to process 301.7 million transactions during the month – up 18% from the first month of the year. As per the report, users were responsible for 88% of failed transactions. Issuer banks were the cause of nearly 9.7% of failed transactions -- up 6% on the month before.
Shaparak offers services via the internet, cellphone and point of sale (POS) devices.
The number of instruments for processing payments showed 3.5% increase over the earlier month, reaching 9.16 million.
The growth was noticeable in online payment gateways, which increased 13.39% from 344,069 to 390,149. However, due to their popularity, POS terminals made the highest contribution to the growth increasing by 3.16% from 8.3 million devices to 8.6 million.
The growth in number of POS terminals, mostly used in shops, came after months of decline. The decline in the number of payment gateways was mostly due to the implementation of stringent measures by the Iran National Tax Administration obliging owners of payment gateways to connect their devices to INTA's database or stop using them.
As is usually the case, POS devices topped the list of instruments with the biggest market share at 94.04%. This was followed by online payment gateways at 4.26% and mobile instruments 1.71%.
Processing more than 3.26 billion transactions worth 5,789 trillion rials ($18.08b), POS devices accounted for 91.96% of the total number of transactions.
Online gateways were second at 4.89% of the total number of transactions followed by mobile instruments at 3.16%.
Based on the report, there were 1,482 instruments per 10,000 adults (above 18 years old) and POS terminals topped the list with 1,393 instruments per 10,000 adults.
Mobile instruments had the lowest penetration rate with 25.3 instruments per 10,000 adults.
Tehran Province topped the list of provinces with the highest number of POS terminals. There were 1.57 million active POS devices in the sprawling metropolis, which was 3.3% higher on the earlier month.
This was followed by Khorasan Razavi with 657,482 and Isfahan 568,860 active devices. Ilam Province had the least POS devices at 60,011.
Shaparak said almost one-third of the transactions made via POS terminals were each worth 50,001 to 250,000 rials. More than half the total POS transactions were above 250,000 rials.
