More than 126.6 million bank cards were used at least once during the eleventh Iranian month (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) of the current fiscal year, data released by Shaparak, the company in charge of supervising Iran's domestic payment network, showed.
The number was up 2.82% on the month before, when it was 123.1 million, the company said on its website.
Debit cards topped the list accounting for 94.6% (119.7 million) of total bank cards. Total debit cards increased by 2.23% during the period.
More than 22.18% of debit cards were issued by Bank Melli, followed by Bank Sepah with more than 12.25% share and Bank Mellat and Bank Saderat each with about 11%.
The share of credit cards increased 8.87% during the month. According to Shaparak, 491,713 credit cards were used at least once during the said month.
Credit cards are still not a norm in Iran and for long were limited to VIPs. But now that is changing. Policy of the Central Bank of Iran in promoting credit cards as an instrument for microloans is influencing banks’ decision to rethink.
Bank Melli issued 66.42% of total credit cards, followed by Bank Sepah 17.49% and Post Bank Iran 4.36%.
Gift cards posted 5% increase during the month mostly due to growth in demand for the Iranian New Year holidays that start next week.
The company said 6.35 million gift cards were used at least once during the month to February 19. More than 14.96% of gift cards were issued by Bank Mellat, Bank Melli was next with 14.21% followed by Parsian Bank at 10.16%.
Data published by Iran’s payment settlement network, Shaparak, show online payment gateways and point-of-sale terminals processed more than 3.22 billion transactions in the calendar month to Feb. 19.
Total transactions reached 6,361.19 trillion rials ($24 billion), showing 4.16% rise in volume and up 1.5% 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 ($19.6 billion) were registered.
