An estimated 3.74 billion retail transactions were logged by the domestic electronic payment network Shaparak in the eleventh month of the calendar year to Feb 22.
Overall business via the major company was worth 9,231 trillion rials ($20.32 billion) – up 2.35% in volume and 9.26% in value on the month before, the company said on its website.
In volume terms, transactions were higher 16.06% from the same month last year when 3.22 billion transactions worth 6,361 trillion rials ($16.2 billion) were processed.
The value was up 45.12% y/y. When adjusted for inflation, the real value of monthly transactions was down 5.55%.
Real value was down 5.38% from the same month last year factoring out annual inflation. The Statistical Center of Iran reported last week that the consumer price index in the month to February 22 climbed 3.51% on the month and 53.38% from the same period last year.
Regarding type of services provided to customers, 89.23% was for buying goods and services. Buying cellphone recharges and paying bills was second at 6.44% while 4.33% were for checking bank a/c balances.
POS in the Lead
The number of instruments for processing payments was up 1.73% from the earlier month, reaching 10.5 million.
However, growth was noticeable in online payment gateways, up 0.75% from 765,391 to 771,145. Total POS terminals mostly used by retail outlets increased 1.84% to 9.61 million devices, but mobile payments slipped 1.13% to 123,528.
As is the norm, POS devices topped the list of instruments with the biggest market share at 91.48% followed by online payment gateways 7.34% and mobile instruments 1.18%.
Processing more than 3.43 billion transactions worth 7,845 trillion rials ($17.7 billion), POS devices accounted for 92.46% of the total number of transactions.
Based on the report, there were 1,699.39 instruments per 10,000 adults (above 18 years old) and POS terminals topped the list with 1,554.55 per 10,000 adults. Mobile instruments had the lowest penetration rate with 19.98 instruments for every 10,000 adults.
Tehran topped the list of provinces with the highest number of POS terminals with 1.645 million active devices in the sprawling metropolis – 1.83% higher on the earlier month.
This was followed by Khorasan Razavi with 722,458 devices and Fars 631,368. Ilam Province had the least POS devices at 66,498.
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 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.
Role of PSPs
Shaparak said that most payment service providers (PSPs) showed change in their market share in the month to Feb 22.
Beh Pardakht Mellat topped the list with 19.35% of the total transactional value. Saman Electronic Payment (SEP) was second with 17.27% -- slightly lower than last month, followed by Pasargad Electronic Payment 11.88% and Sadad Electronic Payment Company 11.79%.
Beh Pardakht was on top in terms of the volume of transactions via POS terminals with 18.45%. The highest number of transactions via online payment gateways was from Beh Pardakht at 30.16%.
Bank Melli-affiliated PSP, Sadad, lost its share of online gateways' transactions by 1.52% and Beh Pardakht's share from online gateway transactions increased by 1.05% during the month, noticeably higher than its peers.
Shaparak provided data on the quality of PSP services saying PECCO accounted for the least failures during the month. Pardakht Novin Arian Company had the worst monthly performance as 0.098% of its transactions were rejected.
Twelve PSPs operate in Iran and are mostly affiliated to banks. Stringent regulations of the Central Bank of Iran for setting up a PSP have discouraged the emergence of new players in the lucrative and growing market.
