An estimated 3.73 billion retail transactions were processed by the domestic electronic payment network Shaparak in the eighth month of the calendar year to November 22.
Overall business via the network was worth 7,708.3 trillion rials ($21.8 billion) – up 0.59% in volume and 9.13% in value on the month before, the company said in its website.
In value terms transactions jumped 15.45% on the same month last year when 3.28 billion transactions worth 6,677 trillion rials ($18.91 billion) were processed. The volume was up 13.77% y/y.
Shaparak presents figures in real value terms to adjust for inflation. However, when adjusted for inflation, the real value of transactions was up 7.06% on the month.
Real value was again down 22.05% from the same month last year not factoring annual inflation. As per data released by the Statistical Center of Iran, the consumer price index in the month to Nov 22 climbed 2.11% on a monthly basis and 48.10% from the same period last year.
Regarding network services, 89.57% was for buying goods and services. Buying cellphone recharges and paying bills was second at 6.27% while 4.16% of the transactions were for checking bank a/c balances.
The number of instruments for processing payments was up 3.66% from the earlier month, reaching 9.88 million.
However, growth was noticeable in online payment gateways, up 8.03% from 558,549 to 603,402. Total POS terminals, mostly used by retail outlets, increased 3.44% to 9.15 million devices, but mobile payments plunged 0.18% to 125,377 in the month.
POS at the Top
As is the norm, POS devices topped the list of instruments with the biggest market share at 92.63%. This was followed by online payment gateways at 6.1% and mobile instruments 1.27%.
Processing more than 3.45 billion transactions worth 6,553.5 trillion rials ($18.56 billion), POS devices accounted for 92.46% of the total volume of transactions.
Based on the report, there were 1,599.42 instruments per 10,000 adults (above 18 years old) and POS terminals topped the list with 1,481.53 per 10,000 adults. Mobile instruments had the lowest penetration rate with 20.28 instruments for every 10,000 adults.
Tehran topped the list of provinces with the highest number of POS terminals. There were 1.57 million active POS devices in the sprawling metropolis – 2.86% higher on the earlier month.
This was followed by Khorasan Razavi with 701,209 devices and Fars 601,421. Ilam Province had the least POS devices at 64,258.
Almost one-third of the transactions made via POS terminals were each worth 50,001 to 250,000 rials. More than 52.4% of the total POS transactions were above 250,000 rials.
Figures presented in the report indicate that there were about 60.37 transactions per 10,000 adults above 18 years. POS terminals topped the list with 55.83 transactions per 10,000 adults, followed by online gateways 2.9 transactions and mobile gateways 1.65 transactions.
Bank Cards
Shaparak data showed more than 133.92 million bank cards were used at least once during the month. This was up 1.56% on the month before when it was 131.8 million. Debit cards were in the lead accounting for 95.43% (127.8 million) of the total cards.
Some 21.48% of the debit cards were issued by Bank Melli followed by Bank Sepah 11.77% and Bank Mellat and Bank Saderat Iran each at 11.11% and 10.75%, respectively.
The share of credit cards was 0.5% of the total bank cards used in the month. The company said 667,217 credit cards were used at least once in the month -- 7.04% higher on the month before.
Bank Melli issued 80.61% of the credit cards, followed by Tejarat Bank 5.58% and Post Bank Iran 4.29%.
Gift cards posted 4.39% increase. The company said 5.457 million gift cards were used at least once during the month to Nov. 22. More than 15.9% of the gift cards were issued by Bank Melli. Bank Mellat was next with 12.42% and Parsian Bank 11.02%.
