An estimated 3.76 billion retail transactions were processed by the domestic electronic payment network Shaparak in the ninth month of the calendar year to December 22.
Overall business via the major company was worth 8,334 trillion rials ($20.32 billion) – up 0.94% in volume and 8.12% in value on the month before, it said on its website.
In volume terms, transactions jumped 15.37% on the same month last year when 3.26 billion transactions worth 6,679 trillion rials ($16.2 billion) were processed. The value was up 24.78% y/y.
Shaparak presents figures in real terms after adjusting for inflation. When adjusted for inflation, the real value of transactions was up 6.08% on the month.
Real value was down 15.96% from the same month last year not factoring annual inflation. The Statistical Center of Iran reported last week that the consumer price index in the month to Dec 22 climbed 1.92% on the month and 48.47% from the same period last year.
Regarding network services, 89.4% was for buying goods and services. Buying cellphone recharges and paying bills was second at 6.17% while 4.43% of the transactions were for checking bank a/c balances.
POS Leads
The number of instruments for processing payments was up 2.92% from the earlier month, reaching 10.17 million.
However, growth was noticeable in online payment gateways, up 10.93% from 603,402 to 669,343. Total POS terminals mostly used by retail outlets increased 2.43% to 9.38 million devices, but mobile payments declined 0.08% to 125,271 in the month.
As is the norm, POS devices topped the list of instruments with the biggest market share at 92.19% followed by online payment gateways at 6.58% and mobile instruments 1.27%.
Processing more than 3.47 billion transactions worth 7,125 trillion rials ($17.3 billion), POS devices accounted for 92.46% of the total volume of transactions.
Based on the report, there were 1,646.1 instruments per 10,000 adults (above 18 years old) and POS terminals topped the list with 1,517.57 per 10,000 adults. Mobile instruments had the lowest penetration rate with 20.26 instruments for every 10,000 adults.
Tehran topped the list of provinces with the highest number of POS terminals with 1.61 million active devices in the sprawling metropolis – 2.11% higher on the earlier month.
This was followed by Khorasan Razavi with 717,429 devices and Fars 618,327. Ilam Province had the least POS devices at 65,654.
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 in the report indicate that there were about 60.95 transactions per 10,000 adults above 18 years. POS terminals topped the list with 56.27 transactions per 10,000 adults, followed by online gateways 3.05 transactions and mobile gateways 1.62 transactions.
