Report on Retail Payments

In July, instant push transfers in pesos increased 22.2% y.o.y. in volume.

• – In pesos: There were 777.2 million instant push transfers for an amount of ARS99.5 trillion, climbing 22.2% y.o.y. in volume, and 7.4% y.o.y. in value, in real terms. Seventy-six point five percent of transactions were made from or to a virtual account through a single virtual code known as CVU.
• – In foreign currency: There were 2.2 million transactions (18.6% y.o.y.) for an amount of USD3,820 million (30.7% y.o.y. in original currency).

Instant pull transfers in pesos reached 46.6 million in July.

• − There were 46.6 million transfers for an amount of ARS5.1 trillion, up 13.7% y.o.y. in volume and 7.1% y.o.y. in value, in real terms.

Interoperable payments by transfer (PCTs) using QR codes totaled 115.9 million transactions in pesos.

• − There were 116.9 million PCT transactions (70.7% y.o.y.) in pesos, for a total of ARS3 trillion (66.6% y.o.y. in real terms).

– QR: 98.9% of PCTs were initiated through QR codes—115.6 million payments (72.4% y.o.y.) for ARS2.96 trillion (68.8% y.o.y. in real terms). Payments from sight accounts (CBU) represented 53.6%, and payments from payment accounts (CVU), 46.4%. At stores, 53.4% of transactions were credited to payment accounts, while the other 46.6% were channeled to sight accounts.

Currently, there are 91 interoperable e-wallets and 64 PCT acquirers registered with the BCRA.

– Token payments: 1.1% of interoperable PCTs were made through a token, accounting for 1.3 million payments (-10% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS48 billion (-7.1% 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 June, there were 67.3 million payment accounts, out of which 14.7 million recorded a balance totaling ARS0.8 trillion. In turn, the balances of money market funds reached ARS8.7 trillion in the same month. Payment accounts and money market funds jointly accounted for 6.9% of total private sector deposits in pesos.
There are currently 223 PSPCPs included in the Registry of Payment Service Providers.

Direct debit

In July, there were 11.5 million direct debits (-4.1% y.o.y.) for a total of ARS2.1 trillion (0.2% y.o.y. in real terms),
with a success rate of 38.8%.

Checks. Electronic checks (ECHEQs) accounted for 86.3% of cleared amounts in June.

• − A total of 5.2 million checks (in paper and electronic form in pesos) were cleared for ARS28.1 trillion.
  The share of e-checks in total cleared checks was 64.6% (3.3 million) in terms of volume and 86.3% (ARS24.3 trillion) in terms of value, increasing 7.9 p.p. and 5.5 p.p. against July 2025.
• − Additionally, 219 e-checks in dollars were cleared for a total of USD41.1 million in July.
• − Checks returned for insufficient funds: The rate of returned checks for insufficient funds over total cleared checks was 1.9% in terms of volume, and 1.2% in terms of value, down 0.1 p.p. in terms of volume and 0.1 in terms of value against June 2026.

Cards. Credit card use exceeded debit card use

• − Debit cards: There were 163.7 million debit card transactions for an amount of ARS5.2 trillion in June (latest data available), exhibiting a decrease of 6.9% y.o.y. in volume, and of 13.4% y.o.y. in value, in real terms. Also, in June there were 8.7 thousand transactions in foreign currency for USD4.9 million (97.1% were channeled through e-commerce).
• − Credit cards: The number of credit card transactions reached 176.2 million for an amount of ARS10.6 trillion, changing 1.6% y.o.y. in volume, and -10.2% y.o.y. in value, in real terms. The most commonly used channels in terms of volume included: e-commerce, 41.6%; POS and QR, 35.5%; and automatic debit, 13.9%. Interoperable QR codes represented 4.6% of total credit card transactions in terms of volume. Lump-sum payments accounted for 88.1% in terms of volume and 64.7% in terms of value.

Transportation

• − Transportation prepaid cards: There were almost 317.9 million trips (-11.6% y.o.y.) paid with SUBE cards in June for a total of ARS0.20 trillion (increasing 9% y.o.y. in real terms).
• − Public transport fares paid through QR codes: In July there were 24.2 million trips for a total of ARS32.5 billion, mostly in buses (21.8 million, 89.4% of the total) and subway lines (2.6 million, 10.6%).

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

In July, 86.9% of transactions were made in pesos. In other words, 67.2 thousand electronic invoices for an amount of ARS1.8 trillion were processed in the system for the open transfer of e-invoices (sistema de circulación abierta, SCA).

Withdrawals

Eighty eight point four percent of withdrawals were made from ATMs. This channel recorded a y.o.y. decrease of 26% in volume and 11% in value in total real terms.

• − Withdrawals from ATMs: in June (latest data available), there were 42.3 million withdrawals from 16,742 ATMs for an amount of ARS4.8 trillion. The average number of monthly withdrawals per ATM was around 2,526 averaging ARS114 thousand in terms of value.
• − Non-bank withdrawals through debit cards: There were 3.2 million transactions amounting to ARS0.2 trillion, withdrawals averaging ARS70.4 thousand.
• − Non-bank withdrawals from payment accounts belonging to the same PSPCP (closed loop): 2.4 million transactions were conducted for ARS0.18 trillion, withdrawals averaging ARS77.5 thousand.

July regulatory summary

There were no communications issued regarding the national payment system in July.