Monthly Report on Retail Payments

Monthly Report on Retail Payments - February 2024

The month under analysis is February 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 January 2024; and data available about prepaid cards is as of December 2023.

Instant push transfers increased 121% in volume y.o.y.

Administered by networks: there were 389.5 million instant push transfers for an amount of ARS20.2 trillion, climbing 121% y.o.y. in volume, and 17.9% y.o.y. in value. Sixty-eight point six percent of transfers (267.3 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 ARS1.8 trillion (53.8% y.o.y.), involving 186.2 million transactions (120% y.o.y.).

Instant pull transfers reached 2 million transactions

There were 2.1 million transfers for an amount of ARS86.6 billion, rising 4.7% in volume and 5.3% in value against January.

Payments by transfer (pagos con transferencia, PCTs): transactions with interoperable QR codes totaled 30.5 million.

Interoperable: there were 37.6 million (39.9% y.o.y.) interoperable PCTs for a total of ARS361 billion (-37.3 % y.o.y.).

QR code payments: 81.2% of interoperable PCTs were initiated through interoperable QR codes, accounting for over 30.5 million payments (322.2% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS274.6 billion (235.3% y.o.y.). Payments from sight accounts represented 76.9%, and payments from payment accounts, 23.1%. Moreover, 54.9% of stores credited the funds in sight accounts, and 45.1%, in payment accounts.
Sixty interoperable e-wallets are currently registered in the registry.
POS card payments: 0.8% of interoperable PCTs were made through debit cards at point-of-sale (POS) terminals, reaching 0.3 million transactions (-97.3% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS6.2 billion (-97.9% y.o.y.). This reduction is due to stores' migration from PCTs (former immediate electronic payments (PEIs)) to debit cards.
Token payments: 15.5% of interoperable PCTs were made through a token, accounting for 5.8 million payments (59.4% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS73 billion (33% y.o.y.).
Payment button: 2.5% of interoperable PCTs were made by clicking a payment button, accounting for 0.9 million payments (-80.7% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS7.3 billion (-94.9 % y.o.y.). This reduction is also due to stores' migration from PCTs (former PEI) to debit cards.

Intra PSPCP: they reached 293.8 million for an amount of ARS2.7 trillion, rising 109.4% y.o.y. in volume, and 50.9% y.o.y. in value.

QR code payments: they accounted for 15.9%, reaching 46.7 million transactions (80.8% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS447.7 billion (56.8% y.o.y.).
Payment button: they accounted for the remaining 84.1%, reaching 247 million transactions (115.8% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS2.2 trillion (49.7% y.o.y.).

Payment accounts and funds invested through PSPCPs:

In January, 16.7 million payment accounts with balances totaling ARS279.8 billion were recorded, whereas the balances of money market funds reached ARS1.1 trillion. Payment accounts and money market funds jointly accounted for 3.45% of total private sector deposits, which amounted to ARS40.8 trillion in that month. One hundred and forty-four PSPCPs are currently registered in the registry.

Instant debit (DEBIN):

There were 30.2 million DEBINs (36.1% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS1 trillion (15.9% y.o.y.). In terms of the number of transactions, 0.5% were one-time DEBINs and 99.5%, recurring DEBINs.

Direct debits:

There were 11.1 million debits (2.3% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS635.9 billion (-27% y.o.y.), reaching a 59.1% success rate.

Checks: e-checks accounted for 68.3% of cleared amounts.

A total of 4.1 million checks (in paper and electronic form) were cleared for ARS7.2 trillion. The share of e-checks in total cleared checks was 44% (1.8 million) in terms of volume and 68.3% (ARS4.9 trillion) in terms of value.
Checks returned for insufficient funds: the rate of returned checks for insufficient funds over total cleared checks was 0.53% in terms of volume, and 0.31% in terms of value.

Cards: debit card use remained above credit card use.

Debit cards: there were 247.7 million debit card transactions for an amount of ARS2.9 trillion, exhibiting a change of 30.6% y.o.y. in volume, and of -0.8% y.o.y. in value.
Credit cards: the number of credit card transactions reached 122 million for an amount of ARS2.9 trillion, changing 16.1% y.o.y. in volume, and -6.6% y.o.y. in value.

Transportation prepaid cards:

There were 342.1 million trips (0.8% y.o.y.) paid with SUBE cards for a total of ARS22.4 billion (-33.3% y.o.y.).

Electronic credit invoices for MSMEs (factura de crédito electrónica MiPyME, FCEM):

In the month under analysis, 88.2% of transactions were made in pesos, with 143.3 thousand electronic invoices processed in the system for the open transfer of e-invoices (sistema de circulación abierta, SCA) for an amount of ARS665.7 billion.

Withdrawals:

Withdrawals from ATMs: there were 89.7 million withdrawals from 17,411 ATMs for an amount of ARS1.8 trillion. The average number of monthly withdrawals per ATM was 5,153 with an average withdrawal amount of ARS20.4 thousand.
Non-bank withdrawals through debit cards: there were 5.5 million withdrawals for an amount of ARS116.8 billion.
Withdrawals through transfers: there were 1.6 million withdrawals for an amount of ARS39.3 billion.
Withdrawals from payment accounts in agencies and stores: there were 2.9 million withdrawals for an amount of ARS76.3 billion.

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March 27, 2024