The supervisory body of the domestic payment network, Shaparak, said Bank Mellat acquired 17.95% of the electronic payment transactions in the calendar month to December 22.
Bank Melli and Bank Saderat ranked after with 13.52% and 11.53% share of the total transactions.
Acquiring banks are financial institutions that offer merchant accounts to businesses. The special accounts are necessary for merchants to receive debit and credit card payments directly. Acquiring banks may also be referred to as merchant banks or acquirers.
Bank Sepah, Bank Keshavarzi and Tejarat Bank were the other big names on the list.
Mellat also led in terms of the total value of acquired transactions, with 17.68% share. Bank Sepah and Bank Melli followed with 16.64% and 13.37%, respectively.
Per Central Bank of Iran regulations, acquirer banks must pay the fee of the transactions plus maintenance charges of payment instruments. Cardholders in Iran pay no fee for electronic transactions.
An estimated 3.76 billion retail transactions were processed by the electronic payment network Shaparak in the month 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.
Banks in Iran issue credit cards, debit cards and gift cards, but credit cards are usually limited to VIPs.
Issuer Banks
According to the report, active bank cards reached 138.299 million in the month with debit cards leading. Card holders made at least one transaction with 131.7 million debit cards in the month or nearly 95.25% of the total.
An estimated 21.33% debit cards were issued by Bank Melli, followed by Bank Sepah 11.78% and Bank Mellat and Bank Saderat with 11.05% and 10.7%, respectively.
Bank Pasargad topped the list of private banks in terms of debit cards with 1.96% of the total. Ayandeh Bank and Bank Shahr (City Bank) were next with 1.58% and 1.53%, respectively.
Bank Melli was the issuer of 82% of the credit cards, followed by Bank Tejarat 4.39% and Bank Post Bank Iran 4.25%.
The total number of credit cards, with at least one monthly transaction, increased 5.46% to December 22 and the number of active credit cards reached 703,666. Credit cards still account for a meager 0.51% of the total bank cards in Iran.
Lenders also issue prepaid (gift) cards, the number of which declined by 7.44% to 5.85 million in the said month. The company said 155% of the prepaid cards were issued by Bank Melli, Bank Mellat’s share was 12.68% and Parsian Bank 10.96%.
