Report on Retail Payments

The analysis month is August 2026, except for withdrawals, credit cards, debit cards, transport cards, and prepaid cards, for which the information corresponds to July 2026 (latest available data).

In August, peso money transfers (immediate “push” transfers) showed a 20.3% y.o.y. growth in volume.

− In pesos: 779 million transactions were recorded for $96 trillion, implying y.o.y. increases of 20.3% and 5.5% in volume and real amounts, respectively. 76.9% of transactions originated from and/or were destined for a CVU.
− In foreign currency: 2.2 million operations were recorded (18.5% y.o.y.) for USD 3,792 million (43.5% y.o.y. in original currency).

Peso money receipts (immediate “pull” transfers) reached 44.5 million operations in August.

− 44.5 million transfers were made for $4.7 trillion, representing y.o.y. increases of 12.3% in volume and 1.6% in real amounts.

Interoperable Payment with Transfer (PCT) via QR totaled 117.2 million operations in pesos.

− 118.3 million PCT operations (65.6% y.o.y.) were carried out in pesos, for a total of $3 trillion (60.4% y.o.y. in real terms).
o QR: 99.1% of PCTs were initiated with QR codes, representing 117.2 million payments (67.5% y.o.y.) for $2.9 trillion (62.9% y.o.y. in real terms). 52.7% were made by customers using their demand deposit accounts (CBU) and 47.3% using their payment accounts (CVU). For merchants, 53.8% of operations were credited to payment accounts, while the remaining 46.2% was channeled to demand deposit accounts.

Currently, 92 interoperable e-wallets and 67 PCT acquirers are registered with the BCRA.

o With random keys: 0.9% used a token to initiate PCTs; this accounts for 1.1 million operations (-23.8% y.o.y.) for $40.8 billion (-23.2% y.o.y. in real terms).

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 July, out of a total of 67.3 million payment accounts, 15.8 million had a balance totaling $0.9 trillion pesos. Meanwhile, balances invested in money market funds (FCI) reached $8.9 trillion in the same month. Considered jointly, both concepts represented 7.2% of the total peso deposits of the private sector. Currently, a total of 233 PSPCPs are included in the Register of Payment Service Providers.

Direct debit

In August, 11.1 million direct debits were made (-4.6% y.o.y.) for a total of $2.2 trillion (2.2% y.o.y. in real terms). The effectiveness rate reached 40.4%.

Checks. 87.2% of the amounts cleared in August corresponded to e-checks.

− 4.8 million checks (physical and electronic in pesos) were cleared for a total of $27.5 trillion. The participation of e-checks in the total cleared reached 65.6% in volume (3.1 million electronic checks) and 87.2% in amounts ($24 trillion), with increases of 7.8 percentage points (p.p.) and 6 p.p. compared to August 2025.
− Furthermore, given the implementation of e-checks in dollars, 247 checks were cleared in August for a total amount of USD 39.3 million.
− Rejections due to “insufficient funds”: the ratio to total cleared items totaled 1.7% in volume and 1% in amounts (-0.2 p.p. and -0.1 p.p. respectively compared to July of this year).

Cards. The use of debit cards surpassed credit cards.

− Debit: 172 million transactions were made for $5.7 trillion pesos in July (latest available data), with decreases of 8.4% y.o.y. in volume and 14.7% y.o.y. in real amounts. Additionally, in July, 10.3 thousand transactions were made in foreign currency for USD 6.1 million (97.1% were processed through the e-commerce channel).
− Credit: y.o.y. variations of -9.2% in volume and -17.6% in real amounts were observed, with 159.3 million payments made for $10 trillion. The most used channels, considering volume, were e-commerce with 41.7%, POS and QR with 33.5%, and direct debit with 15.9%. Interoperable QR reached 4.8% of total credit card operations in volume. Meanwhile, the single-payment modality represented 88.6% in volume and 67.7% in amounts of total operations.

Transportation

− Prepaid transport cards: in July, 270.2 million trips were made (-22% y.o.y.) using the SUBE card, totaling $0.19 trillion (a decrease of 1.7% y.o.y. in real terms).
− QR travel: in August, 26.3 million trips were made, totaling $36.4 billion, mainly recorded on buses (23.5 million, 89.1% of the total) and on the various subway lines (2.9 million, 10.9%).

Electronic Invoice for MSMEs (FCEM)

In the analysis month, 85.9% of operations were carried out in pesos, with 66.5 thousand invoices in that currency entering the open circulation system (SCA) for $1.7 trillion.

Withdrawals

88.4% of withdrawals were made from ATMs, a channel that registered a y.o.y. decrease of 28% in the number of operations and 16% in its total real amount.
− ATMs: in July (latest available data), 41 million withdrawals were made at the 16,662 available ATMs for a total of $4.8 trillion, with an average of approximately 2,459 withdrawals per ATM in the month. The average withdrawal amount reached $118.3 thousand.
− Off-bank withdrawals with debit card: 3.1 million withdrawals for $0.2 trillion, with an average amount of $72.1 thousand.
− Off-bank withdrawals from intra-PSPCP payment accounts (“closed loop”): 2.3 million withdrawals for $0.18 trillion, with an average amount of $81.4 thousand.

Regulatory Summary for August

Communication A 8471 strengthened the fraud risk management regime applicable to payment service providers. For PSPCPs, it established the gradual implementation of a comprehensive operational risk management framework, including fraud risk, with governance requirements, anti-fraud policies, designated responsible parties, monitoring, mitigation, and reporting. In turn, it established simplified obligations for other PSPs, aimed at ensuring the existence of responsible parties for fraud risk management, conducting self-assessments of said risk, developing mitigation plans, and applying controls in technology and information security.