PSP Market Overview

EghtesadOnline: The latest monthly report by Iran's e-payment network, Shaparak Company, shows Saman Electronic Payment company (SEP) tops the list of payment service providers in terms of the volume of transactions in the month to March 20.

News ID: ۷۸۷۸۱۹

13 April 2022

SEP, affiliated to Saman Bank, processed 20.86% of the transactions closely followed by Beh Pardakht Mellat Company of Bank Mellat with 19.47%.

Parsian Electronic Commerce Company, affiliated to Parsian Bank, was next with 17.5% of the total transactions, followed by Asan Pardakht Persian at 9% and Pasargad Electronic Payment 8.62%.

This is while, Beh Pardakht Mellat topped the list in value terms with 19.84%. Saman Electronic Payment came in  second with 16.67% followed by PECCO 12.55% and Iran Kish Credit Card Company 11.71%.

Asan Pardakht, however, has maintained the top slot in online payments, thanks to its widely used mobile application, and its collaboration with major online retail outlets and services platforms. It processed 44.05% of the transactions via online payment gateways, 1.76 percentage points higher on the month before.

However, the company seems to be mostly processing low-value transactions as it only accounted for 6.4% of the total value of payments. Beh Pardakht topped the list in this regard with 30% share.

SEP ranked first in terms of total transactions made using POS terminals and mobile payment gateways with 20.6% and 35.5%, respectively.

Shaparak data also showed that the majority of users made use of gateways connected to Saman for paying utility bills.

Twelve PSPs operate in Iran’s digital payment industry and are mostly affiliated to banks. Stringent regulations of the Central Bank of Iran for setting up a PSP have disallowed the emergence of new players in the lucrative market.

Shaparak also reflected on PSP performance in terms of the purpose of transactions, putting them in three groups of payments made for purchasing goods and services, paying bills and checking bank accounts.

As per the report, PECCO accounted for the least failures in payment transactions during the month under the review.

More than 3.22 billion transactions worth 6,361.19 trillion rials ($24 billion) were processed by Shaparak in the month, up 4.16% in volume and 1.5% higher in value on a monthly basis.

More than 3.6 billion retail transactions were reported by the e-payment network in the last month of the calendar year.

Transactions then were worth 7,439.51 trillion rials ($27.5 billion), up 11.84% in volume and 16.95% in value from the month before.

The rise in e-transactions is apparently due to the tendency of consumers to buy gifts and new clothes in the run-up to the annual Persian New Year holiday season. Market observers say the upward trajectory is a promising sign that businesses are slowly but steadily returning to the pre-Covid era.