Report on Retail Payments

Report on Retail Payments - November 2024

The report analyzes information as of November 2024, except for that involving withdrawals, credit cards, debit cards and transportation cards, which is updated as of October 2024, and that on prepaid cards, which is updated as of September 2024.

Instant push transfers increased 54.4% y.o.y. in volume.

In pesos :there were 580.4 million instant push transfers for an amount of ARS51 trillion, climbing 54.4% y.o.y. in volume, and 23.5% y.o.y. in value. Seventy point five percent of transfers were made from or to a virtual account through a single virtual code known as CVU.
In foreign currency: there were 2.1 million transactions (153.6% y.o.y.) for an amount of USD3.543 billion (193.5% y.o.y.).

Instant pull transfers reached 40.6 million transactions.

There were 40.6 million transfers for an amount of ARS2.4 trillion, -0.6% in volume and 5.2% in value against October.

Payments by transfer (pagos con transferencia, PCTs): transactions with interoperable QR codes totaled 55.7 million.

Interoperable: there were 59.6 million (61.5% y.o.y.) interoperable PCTs for ARS882.8 billion (6.2% y.o.y.).

o QR code payments: 93.5% of interoperable PCTs were initiated through interoperable QR codes, accounting for 55.7 million payments (133.4% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS809.7 billion (109.7% y.o.y.). Payments from sight accounts represented 66.8%, and payments from payment accounts, 33.2%. Moreover, 47% of stores credited the funds in sight accounts, and 53%, in payment accounts..
Sixty-seven interoperable e-wallets are currently registered with the BCRA.
o Token payments: 6.5% of interoperable PCTs were made through a token, accounting for 3.9 million payments (-33.6% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS73.1 billion (-41.6% y.o.y.).

Payment accounts and funds invested through payment service providers that offer payment accounts (proveedores de servicios de pago que ofrecen cuentas de pago, PSPCPs):

In October, out of 51.9 million accounts, there were 14.5 million payment accounts with balances totaling ARS401.5 billion, whereas money market funds reached ARS3.2 trillion. Payment accounts and money market funds jointly accounted for 5.20% of total private sector deposits in pesos, which amounted to ARS69.4 trillion in that month. Currently, there are 170 PSPCPs registered.

Direct debits:

There were 12.1 million debits (6.8% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS1.3 trillion (12.2% y.o.y.), reaching a 54.8% success rate.

Checks: e-checks accounted for 77.5% of cleared amounts.

A total of 4.9 million checks (in paper and electronic form) were cleared for ARS14 trillion. The share of e-checks in total cleared checks was 51.7% (2.5 million) in terms of volume and 77.5% (ARS10.8 trillion) in terms of value.
Checks returned for insufficient funds: the rate of returned checks for insufficient funds over total cleared checks was 0.71% in terms of volume, and 0.5% in terms of value.

Cards: debit card use remained above credit card use.

Debit cards: there were 240.3 million debit card transactions for an amount of ARS4.9 trillion, exhibiting a change of -4.5% y.o.y. in volume, and of -13.9% y.o.y. in value.
Credit cards: the number of credit card transactions reached 172.2 million for an amount of ARS7.4 trillion, changing 18.5% y.o.y. in volume, and -10% y.o.y. in value. The channels used included: POS and QR, 43%; e-commerce, 31%; and automatic debit, 16%.
Prepaid cards: there were 42.3 million payments for an amount of ARS616.6 billion, climbing 97.3% y.o.y. in volume and 65.9% y.o.y. in value.

Transportation prepaid cards:

There were 400 million trips (-9.5% y.o.y.) paid with SUBE cards for a total of ARS128.3 billion (117.5% y.o.y.).

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

In November, 88.5% of transactions were made in pesos. In other words, 114.4 thousand electronic invoices for an amount of ARS1.1 trillion were processed in the system for the open transfer of e-invoices (sistema de circulación abierta, SCA).

Withdrawals:

Ninety percent of withdrawals were made from ATMs.

Withdrawals from ATMs: there were 84.6 million withdrawals from 17,099 ATMs totaling ARS3 trillion. The average number of withdrawals per ATM was 4,947, averaging ARS35.6 thousand in terms of value.
Non-bank withdrawals through debit cards: there were 5.5 million transactions amounting to ARS230.4 billion, withdrawals averaging ARS41.8 thousand in terms of value.
Non-bank withdrawals from payment accounts belonging to the same PSPCP (closed loop): there were 3.4 million transactions amounting to ARS141.8 billion, withdrawals averaging ARS41.9 thousand in terms of value.

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December 27, 2024