Monthly Report on Retail Payments, January 2024
The month under analysis is January 2024. Information about push instant transfers, payments by transfer belonging to the same payment service provider that offers payment accounts (proveedor de servicios de pago que ofrece cuentas de pago, PSPCP), withdrawals, credit cards, debit cards and transportation cards is as of December 2023; and data available about prepaid cards is as of December 2023.
Instant push transfers increased 117.9% y.o.y.
- Administered by networks: there were 384.3 million instant push transfers for an amount of ARS19.1 trillion, climbing 117.9% y.o.y. in volume, and 14.3% y.o.y. in value. Sixty-nine point six percent of transfers (267.6 million) involved the use of a single virtual code known as CVU—identifying a payer and/or a payee account.
- Intra-PSPCP: transfers between accounts belonging to the same PSPCP reached ARS1.7 trillion (58.8% y.o.y.), involving 195.3 million transactions (109% y.o.y.).
Instant pull transfers reached 2 million transactions.
- There were 2 million transfers for an amount of ARS72.6 billion, rising 13.7% in volume and 28.5% in value against December.
Payments by transfer (pagos con transferencia, PCTs): transactions with interoperable QR codes totaled 28.8 million.
- Interoperable: there were 39.5 million (46.7% y.o.y.) interoperable PCTs for a total of ARS398.6 billion (-25.9 % y.o.y.).
- QR code payments: 72.8% of interoperable PCTs were initiated through interoperable QR codes, accounting for almost 28.8 million payments (310.1% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS237.9 billion (235.8% y.o.y.). Payments from sight accounts represented 77.8%, and payments from payment accounts, 22.2%. Moreover, 57.1% of stores credited the funds in sight accounts, and 42.9%, in payment accounts. Sixty interoperable e-wallets are currently registered in the registry.
- POS card payments: 9.2% of interoperable PCTs were made through debit cards at point-of-sale (POS) terminals, reaching 3.6 million transactions (-67.9% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS83.9 billion (-69.3% y.o.y.).
- Token payments: 14.9% of interoperable PCTs were made through a token, accounting for 5.9 million payments (65.7% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS67.5 billion (43.3% y.o.y.).
- Payment button: 3.1% of interoperable PCTs were made by clicking a payment button, accounting for 1.2 million payments (-76.1% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS9.4 billion (-93.6 % y.o.y.).
- Intra PSPCP: they reached 308.7 million for an amount of ARS2.5 trillion, rising 110.9% y.o.y. in volume, and 66% y.o.y. in value.
- QR code payments: they accounted for 15.3%, reaching 47.2 million transactions (72.2% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS393.9 billion (48.1% y.o.y.).
- Payment button: they accounted for the remaining 84.7%, reaching 261.5 million transactions (119.8% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS2.2 trillion (69.7% y.o.y.).
Payment accounts and funds invested through PSPCPs:
In December, 16.7 million payment accounts with balances totaling ARS341 billion were recorded, whereas the balances of money market funds reached ARS1.08 trillion. Payment accounts and money market funds jointly accounted for 3.69% of total private sector deposits, which amounted to ARS38.5 trillion in that month. One hundred and forty-one PSPs that offer payment accounts are currently registered in the registry.
.Instant debit (DEBIN):
There were 30.1 million DEBINs (35.4% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS925.2 billion (17.3% y.o.y.). In terms of the number of transactions, 0.4% were one-time DEBINs and 99.6%, recurring DEBINs
Direct debits:
There were 11 million debits (2.3% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS551 billion (-31% y.o.y.), reaching a 58% success rate.
Checks: e-checks accounted for 67.6% of cleared amounts.
- A total of 4.8 million checks (in paper and electronic form) were cleared for ARS7.2 trillion. The share of e-checks in total cleared checks was 42.7% (2.1 million) in terms of volume and 67.6% (ARS4.8 trillion) in terms of value.
- Checks returned for insufficient funds: the rate of returned checks for insufficient funds over total cleared checks was 0.57% in terms of volume, and 0.35% in terms of value.
Cards: debit card use remained above credit card use.
- Debit cards: there were 293.5 million debit card transactions for an amount of ARS3.2 trillion, exhibiting a change of 36.1% y.o.y. in volume, and of 7.8% y.o.y. in value.
- Credit cards: the number of credit card transactions reached 138 million for an amount of ARS3.2 trillion, changing 19.9% y.o.y. in volume, and 5.1% y.o.y. in value.
- Prepaid cards: there were 21.4 million payments for an amount of ARS185.4 billion, climbing 31.2% y.o.y. in volume and 12.9% y.o.y. in value.
Transportation prepaid cards:
There were 372.4 million trips (0.6% y.o.y.) paid with SUBE cards for a total of ARS19.2 billion (-21.4% y.o.y.).
Electronic credit invoices for MSMEs (factura de crédito electrónica MiPyME, FCEM):
In January, 86.6% of transactions were made in pesos, with 124.9 thousand electronic invoices processed in the system for the open transfer of e-invoices (sistema de circulación abierta, SCA) for an amount of ARS550.5 billion.
Withdrawals:
- Withdrawals from ATMs: there were 109.4 million withdrawals from 17,442 ATMs for an amount of ARS2.2 trillion. The average number of monthly withdrawals per ATM was 6,270 with an average withdrawal amount of ARS20.4 thousand.
- Non-bank withdrawals through debit cards: there were 6.1 million withdrawals for an amount of ARS120.2 billion.
- Withdrawals through transfers: there were 2.8 million withdrawals for an amount of ARS65.5 billion.
- Withdrawals from payment accounts in agencies and stores: there were 3.3 million withdrawals for an amount of ARS82.2 billion.
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February 27, 2024
