Monthly Report on Retail Payments - February 2023

- Instant push transfers: they accounted for more than 261 million transactions.

• Administered by networks: there were 176.2 million instant push transfers for an amount of ARS4.5 trillion, climbing 105.4% y.o.y. in volume, and 19% y.o.y. in value. Fifty-nine point four percent of transfers (104.7 million) involved the use of a single virtual code known as CVU—identifying a payer and/or a payee account.
• Intra-PSPCPs: instant transfers between payment service providers that offer payment accounts (proveedores de servicios de pago que ofrecen cuentas de pago, PSPCPs) reached ARS325.8 billion (99.6% y.o.y.), amounting to 84.6 million transactions (166.7% y.o.y.).

- Payments by transfer (pagos con transferencia, PCTs): the use of interoperable QR codes is being steadily adopted as a payment option. There were 167.3 million payments by transfer for a total of ARS651.5 billion; interoperable payments accounted for 16.1% in volume and 23.3% in value; and intra-PSPCPs payments, for 84% in volume and 77% in value.

• Interoperable PCTs: there were 27 million (48.3% y.o.y.) interoperable PCTs for a total of ARS153.1 billion (-1.2% y.o.y.).
• QR code payments: 26.9% of these payments were initiated through interoperable QR codes, accounting for over 7.2 million payments. Payments from sight accounts represented 83.5%, and payments from payment accounts, 16.5%. Moreover, 58.2% of stores credited the funds in sight accounts, and 41.8%, in payment accounts.
• POS card payments: 41.2% of interoperable PCTs (11.1 million) were made through debit cards at point-of-sale (POS) terminals.
• Token payments: 13.6% of interoperable PCTs (3.6 million) were made through a token.
• Payment buttons: 18.3% of interoperable PCTs (4.9 million) were online transactions.

-Intra-PSPCP PCTs: they reached 140.3 million for an amount of ARS499.7 billion, rising 136.2% y.o.y. in volume, and 92.2% y.o.y. in value.

• QR code payments: they accounted for 18.4%, reaching 25.8 million transactions (98% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS80.6 billion (65.5% y.o.y.).
• Online payments: they accounted for 81.6%, reaching 114.5 million transactions (146.93% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS419.1 billion (98.3% y.o.y.).

- Payment accounts and funds invested through PSPCPs: in January, 15.5 million payment accounts with balances totaling ARS95.9 billion were recorded, whereas the balances of mutual funds reached ARS154.8 billion. Both items accounted for 1.57% of total private sector deposits, which amounted to ARS16.7 trillion in that month.

- Instant debit (DEBIN): DEBINs fell 2.3% against January, exhibiting a growth of 169.4% y.o.y., reaching 22.2 million transactions for an amount of ARS233.5 billion. In terms of the number of transactions, 0.4% were one-time DEBINs and 99.6%, recurring DEBINs.

- Direct debit: there were 11.1 million debits (12.4% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS233.9 billion (7.1% y.o.y.), reaching a 54.5% effective annual rate (EAR).

- Checks: electronic checks (ECHEQs) accounted for 60% of cleared amounts.

• A total of 4.3 million checks (in paper and electronic form) were cleared for ARS2.2 trillion. The share of ECHEQs in total cleared checks was 35.1% (1.5 million) in terms of volume and 60% (ARS1.3 trillion) in terms of value.
• Checks returned for insufficient funds: the rate of returned checks for insufficient funds with respect to the total number of cleared checks exhibited a drop of 0.76% in terms of volume, and 0.54% in terms of value.

- Cards: debit card use exceeds credit card use

• The number of debit card transactions reached 189.7 million for an amount of ARS831.3 billion, exhibiting a change of 16.5% y.o.y. in volume, and 2.4% y.o.y. in value.
• The number of credit card transactions reached 105.3 million for an amount of ARS886.4 billion, with changes of 8.5% y.o.y. in volume, and 0.1% y.o.y. in value.

- Transportation prepaid cards: there were 339.5 million trips (43% y.o.y.) paid with a SUBE card for a total of ARS9.5 billion (22.7% y.o.y.).

- Electronic credit invoices for MSMEs (factura de crédito electrónica MiPyME, FCEM): in February, 88.1% of transactions involved 95.3 thousand electronic invoices in pesos for an amount of ARS183.9 trillion under the system for the open transfer of e-invoices (sistema de circulación abierta, SCA).

- Withdrawals from ATMs: there were 89.5 million withdrawals from 17,427 ATMs for an amount of ARS1,046.8 trillion. The average number of monthly withdrawals per ATM was 5,136 with an average amount transacted of ARS11.7 thousand.

Download report - in Spanish -

To access all editions, click here

March 31, 2023