Report on Retail Payments

The report analyzes information as of June 2026, except for that involving withdrawals, credit cards, debit cards, and transportation cards, which is updated as of May 2026, and that on prepaid cards, which is updated as of March 2026 (latest data available).

In June, instant push transfers in pesos increased 29% y.o.y. in volume.

− In pesos: There were 762.9 million instant push transfers for an amount of ARS92.7 trillion, climbing 29% y.o.y. in volume, and 15.2% y.o.y. in value, in real terms. Seventy-six point six percent of transactions were made from or to a virtual account through a single virtual code known as CVU.

− In foreign currency: There were 1.8 million transactions (26.2% y.o.y.) for an amount of USD3,545 million (49.4% y.o.y. in original currency).

Instant pull transfers in pesos reached 45 million in June.

− There were 45 million transfers for an amount of ARS4.7 trillion, up 14.2% y.o.y. in volume and 7.9% y.o.y. in value, in real terms.

Interoperable payments by transfer (PCTs) using QR codes totaled 108.2 million transactions in pesos.

− There were 109.4 million PCT transactions (73.8% y.o.y.) in pesos, for a total of ARS2.7 trillion (65.4% y.o.y. in real terms).

o QR: 98.9% of PCTs were initiated through QR codes—108.2 million payments (75.4% y.o.y.) for ARS2.6 trillion (67.4% y.o.y. in real terms). Payments from sight accounts (CBU) represented 53.5%, and payments from payment accounts (CVU), 46.5%.
At stores, 52.4% of transactions were credited to payment accounts, while the other 47.6% were channeled to sight accounts. Currently, there are 90 interoperable e-wallets and 62 PCT acquirers registered with the BCRA.

Currently, 90 interoperable e-wallets and 62 PCT acquirers are registered with the BCRA.

o Token payments: 1.1% of interoperable PCTs were made through a token, accounting for 1.2 million payments (27.6% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS42.9 billion (-4.4% 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 May, there were 67 million payment accounts, out of which 14.6 million recorded a balance totaling ARS0.8 trillion. In turn, the balances of money market funds reached ARS7.7 trillion in the same month. Payment accounts and money market funds jointly accounted for 7.1% of total private sector deposits in pesos. There are currently 219 PSPCPs included in the Registry of Payment Service Providers.

Direct debit

In June, 1there were 11.5 million direct debits (-4.6% y.o.y.) for a total of ARS2 trillion (3.6% y.o.y. in real terms), with a success rate of 38.5%.

Checks. Electronic checks (ECHEQs) accounted for 85.1% of cleared amounts in June

− A total of 5.2 million checks (in paper and electronic form in pesos) were cleared for ARS26.8 trillion. The share of e-checks in total cleared checks was 64.4% (3.4 million) in terms of volume and 85.1% (ARS22.8 trillion) in terms of value, increasing 8.1 p.p. and 4.1 p.p. against June 2025.

− Additionally, 275 e-checks in dollars were cleared for a total of USD81.9 million in June.

− Checks returned for insufficient funds: The rate of returned checks for insufficient funds over total cleared checks was 2% in terms of volume, and 1.3% in terms of value, down 0.1 p.p. in terms of volume and 0.2 in terms of value against May 2026.

Cards. Credit card use exceeded debit card use

− Debit cards: There were 169.4 million debit card transactions for an amount of ARS5.2 trillion in May (latest data available), exhibiting a decrease of 7.2% y.o.y. in volume, and of 12.7% y.o.y. in value, in real terms. Also, in May there were 8.9 thousand transactions in foreign currency for USD5.4 million (97.7% were channeled through e-commerce).

− Credit cards: The number of credit card transactions reached 183.8 million for an amount of ARS11.4 trillion, changing -4.5% y.o.y. in volume, and -12.9% y.o.y. in value, in real terms. The most commonly used channels in terms of volume included: e-commerce, 41.9%; POS and QR, 35.8%; and automatic debit, 13.4%. Interoperable QR codes represented 4.7% of total credit card transactions in terms of volume. Lump-sum payments accounted for 87.4% in terms of volume and 62.7% in terms of value.

Transportation

− Transportation prepaid cards: There were almost 292.3 million trips (-17.3% y.o.y.) paid with SUBE cards in May for a total of ARS0.18 trillion (increasing 0.8% y.o.y. in real terms).

− Public transport fares paid through QR: In June there were 26 million trips for a total of ARS32.8 billion, mostly in buses (23.2 million, 89.3% of the total) and subway lines (2.8 million, 10.7%).

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

In June, 86.5% of transactions were made in pesos. In other words, 63.7 thousand electronic invoices for an amount of ARS1.7 trillion were processed in the system for the open transfer of e-invoices (sistema de circulación abierta, SCA).

Withdrawals

Eighty nine percent of withdrawals were made from ATMs. This channel recorded a y.o.y. decrease of 30% in volume and 11% in value in total real terms.

− Withdrawals from ATMs: In May (latest data available), there were 41.8 million withdrawals from 17,314 ATMs for an amount of ARS4.5 trillion. The average number of monthly withdrawals per ATM was around 2,413 averaging ARS107 thousand.

− O Non-bank withdrawals through debit cards: There were 3 million transactions amounting to ARS0.2 trillion, withdrawals averaging ARS68.2 thousand.

−Non-bank withdrawals from payment accounts belonging to the same PSPCP (closed loop):
2.1 million transactions were conducted for ARS0.16 trillion, withdrawals averaging ARS74.4 thousand.