Transactions grew by 6.59% and 10.68% in volume and value compared to a month earlier when more than 2.1 billion transactions worth 2,390 trillion rials ($19.9 billion) were processed.
Shaparak is a Central Bank of Iran-affiliated supervisory entity in charge of the payment settlement network.
On a year-on-year basis, volume and value of transactions have grown respectively by 32.15% and 30.18%, according to Financial Tribune.
The report attributes annual surge in the value of transactions partly to rising inflation. As for the contribution of other factors, Shaparak referred to the increasing number of receiving instruments and debit cards plus the growing tendency toward employing various methods of payment as opposed to using cash.
Factoring out inflation, the company presents data in real terms to help provide more robust information for decision-making.
Accordingly, after factoring out a 41.72% point-to-point inflation in the reviewed month, the real value of transactions rose 7.72% compared with a previous month.
This is while the real value of transactions registered an annual decline of 8.14%.
Shaparak offers services via Internet, cellphone and point of sale (POS) devices.
Based on the report, the number of transactions via internet fell 0.86% compared to the earlier month and had a market share of 10.08%.
Mobile instruments for receiving payments registered 1.73% rise in the same month while holding a market share of 12.31%. POS devices in shops grew barely by 0.22% in volume on a monthly basis, but still held the lion’s share of the market.
Higher number of POS devices is attributed mainly to their wider spread compared to other devices and its capability to be used without the need for supplementary devices such as PC or cellphone, which may not always be accessible.
On the whole, the number of instruments for receiving payments registered a 0.29% surge in the month compared to the month before.
In terms of services offered by Shaparak, data shows that during the month under review, 83.2% of the transactions were conducted for “buying goods and services.” “Buying cellphone recharges and paying bills” was in the second place, accounting for 11.91% of the transactions. Finally, 4.85 % of the transactions were done for “checking account balances.”
Penetration
As for penetration of the receiving instruments, there were 1,611 instruments per 10,000 adults (above 18 years old) during the month.
POS devices had the highest and Internet instruments the lowest penetration rates, registering 1,250 and 162 instruments per 10,000 adults, respectively.
Tehran Province topped the list with the highest number instruments. During the period, there were 1.56 million active POS devices in the sprawling metropolis, followed by Khorasan Razavi and Isfahan provinces, with 570,230 and 525,373 active devices in operation, respectively.
The lowest number of POS devices was in Ilam Province with 54,294 POS machines.