Data published on the Shaparak website indicate the transactions jumped 9.53% in volume and 15.12% in value compared to the month before.
In comparison to the corresponding month last year, the value of transactions was up 42.22%. The transactions grew 21.13% y/y. The annual increase in transactional value was partly due to galloping inflation. Taking inflation into account the transactions declined y/y.
Shaparak said that when factoring out inflation the real value climbed 12.28% on a monthly basis but y/y it declined 3.66%.
As per data released by the Statistical Center of Iran, the average goods and services Consumer Price Index in the 12-month period ending June 21 increased by 43% compared with the corresponding period the year before.
Inflation for the month under review (May 22-June 21) was 47.6% higher compared to the similar month in the previous calendar year.
Decline in Payment Instruments
According to the report, the total number of payment receiving instruments fell 1.25% compared to the month before to reach 12.58 million.
The fall is attributed to mobile instruments and POS terminals, which declined 1.85% and 1.28% in number compared to the month before. The number of internet payment gateways fell 0.55% in during the period.
In terms of market share, POS devices were at the top with 75.84% share. Internet payment gateways were next at 12.73% followed by mobile instruments 11.43%.
Shaparak said that higher number of POS devices was due mainly to their wider spread compared to other peers.
In terms of volume and value of transactions processed via each receiving instrument, POS devices as usual had the lion’s share, accounting for 90.24% and 88.25% of the total volume and value of transactions with 2.98 billion transactions worth 4,877.57 trillion rials ($19.5 billion) during the month.
Online gateways were next accounting for 6.32% of the total transactions and mobile instruments handled 3.44%.
In terms of services offered by Shaparak, during the month under review 88.23% of the transactions were for buying goods and services. Buying cellphone recharges and paying bills was second accounting for 7.5% of the services while 4.27% of the transactions were undertaken for checking account balances.
As for the penetration rate of the instruments, there were 2,035 instruments per 10,000 adults (above 18 years old) in the country in the month.
POS devices had the highest and mobile instruments the lowest penetration rates with 1,543 and 232 instruments per 10,000 adults, respectively.
During the period there were 1.93 million active POS devices in Tehran Province -- down 1.30% on a monthly basis. This was followed by Khorasan Razavi and Isfahan provinces with 721,246 and 658,057 devices, respectively.
The lowest number of POS devices was reported from Ilam Province at 67,246.