Monthly Rise in Electronic Transactions

EghtesadOnline: Shaparak, Iran’s payment settlement network, processed 2.79 billion transactions worth 4,562.46 trillion rials ($19.01 billion) in the month ending Jan. 19.

News ID: ۷۸۵۹۵۱

08 February 2021

Compared to the month before, the transactions registered a 3.96% and 8.87% rise in volume and value, respectively, according to the monthly report published on Shaparak’s website.

The transaction value rose 62.15% compared with the same period of last year when 2.20 billion transactions worth 2,813.72 trillion rials ($11.72 billion) were processed. In terms of volume, it showed a 26.69% growth on a year-on-year basis.

When adjusted for inflation, the real value of transactions rose by 6.92% on a monthly basis. Likewise, the real value of transactions increased by 10.9% compared to the same period of last year.

Three Services

Shaparak offers services via internet, cellphone and point of sale (POS).

The number of instruments for processing payments showed a 1.36% increase compared to a month earlier, reaching a total of 12.54 million.

The number of internet payment gateways increased by 3.88% to reach 1.51 million, marking the biggest contribution to growth.

POS devices in shops reached 9.59 million, experiencing a 1.15% rise during the aforementioned period.

Mobile instruments had the lowest growth of 0.19%.

As is usually the case, POS devices topped the list of instruments with the biggest market share of 76.47%. This was followed by online payment gateways and mobile instruments with a 12.04% and 11.49% share of the market, respectively.

The higher number of POS devices is mainly ascribed to their mushrooming spread compared to other devices.

Processing more than 2.5 billion transactions worth 3,976 trillion rials ($16.56 billion), POS devices accounted for 89.51% of the total number of transactions.

Second on the list, online gateways accounted for 6.62% of the total number of transactions followed by mobile instruments at 3.87%.

In terms of services offered by Shaparak, data show that during the month under review, 86.67% of the transactions were conducted for buying goods and services.

“Buying cellphone recharges and paying bills” was in second place, accounting for 8.41% of the services and “checking account balances” held a 4.92% share of transactions.

Penetration

Based on the report, 2,064 instruments were used by 10,000 adults (above 18 years old). As always, POS terminals held the lion's share with 1,578 instruments and mobile instruments had the lowest penetration rate with 237 instruments per 10,000 adults.

Tehran Province topped the list of provinces with the highest number of POS terminals. There were 1.94 million active POS devices in the sprawling metropolis, which indicate a 0.71% rise compared to the previous month.

This was followed by Khorasan Razavi Province with 733,720 and Isfahan with 669,280 active devices. Ilam Province had the lowest number of POS devices with 68,888 devices.