Report on Retail Payments

The month of analysis is May 2026 except for withdrawals, credit cards, debit cards and transport cards that the information corresponds to April 2026 and prepaid cards to March 2026 (latest available data).

In May, remittances in pesos (immediate “push” transfers) saw a growth in amounts of 26.6% y.o.y.

− In pesos: 759.9 million transactions were registered for $87.5 billion, implying year-on-year increases of 26.6% and 12.9% in real amounts and amounts, respectively. 76.6% of the transactions had a CVU as their origin and/or destination.

− In foreign currency: 2 million operations were registered (27.3% YoY) for USD 3,389 million (40.7% YoY in currency of origin).

Income from money in pesos (“pull” instant transfers) reached 43.9 million operations in May.

− 43.9 million transfers were made for $4.2 trillion, representing year-on-year increases of 15.1% in amounts and 8% in real amounts.

Interoperable transfer payments (PCT) through the QR totaled 102.5 million transactions in pesos.

− 103.7 million PCT operations were carried out (63.7% YoY) in pesos, for a total of $2.4 trillion (57.7% YoY in real terms).

o QR: 98.8% of PCTs were initiated with QR codes, representing 102.5 million payments (66.1% YoY) for $2.4 trillion (60.8% YoY in real terms). 52.8% were made by customers who used their demand accounts (CBU) and 47.2% in their payment accounts (CVU). On the other hand, in stores, 52.4% of transactions were credited to payment accounts, while the remaining 47.6% were channeled to demand accounts.

Currently, 90 interoperable digital wallets and 63 PCT acceptors are registered with the BCRA.

o With random keys: 1.2% used a token for the start of PCTs; These are 1.2 million operations (-0.9% YoY) for $40.5 billion (-25.6% YoY 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 April, out of a total of 66.2 million payment accounts, 13 million had a balance totaling $0.7 trillion pesos. On the other hand, the balances invested in FCI of money reached $ 7.5 trillion in the same month. Considered together, both concepts represented 7.5% of the total deposits in pesos of the private sector. A total of 219 PSPCPs are currently included in the Register of Payment Service Providers.

Direct debit

In May, 11 million direct debits were made (-7.7% YoY) for a total of $1.9 trillion (2.5% YoY in real terms). The effectiveness rate reached 40%.

Checks. 84.9% of the amounts compensated in May corresponded to ECHEQ.

− 4.7 million checks (physical and electronic in pesos) were cleared for a total of $22.9 billion. ECHEQ’s share of the total number of cleared persons reached 63.5% in quantities (3 million electronic checks) and 84.9% in amounts ($19.4 billion), with increases of 8.2 percentage points (p.p.) and 5.4 p.p. compared to May 2025.

− Likewise, given the implementation of the ECHEQ in dollars, 152 checks were cleared in May for a total amount of USD 29 million.

− Rejections for reasons of “insufficient funds”: the ratio to the total compensated totaled 2.1% in quantities and 1.4% in amounts, which represented a drop of 0.1 percentage points (p.p.) in quantities compared to April of this year (in amounts it remained unchanged).

Cards. The use of credit cards surpassed debit cards

− Debit: 164.3 million transactions were made for $4.9 trillion pesos in April (latest available data), with decreases of 7% YoY in amounts and 13.9% YoY in real amounts. Likewise, in April, 8.9 thousand transactions were made in foreign currency for USD 5.2 million (97.3% were processed through the e-commerce channel).
− Credit: year-on-year variations of -6% in amounts and -13.3% in real amounts were observed, with 172.1 million payments being made for $9.9 trillion. The most used channels, considering quantities, were e-commerce with 40.1%, POS and QR with 37.1% and automatic debit with 13.8%. Interoperable QR reached 4.8% of all credit card transactions, in quantities. For its part, the one-payment modality represented 85.3% in amounts and 62.5% in amounts of the total operations.

Transportation

− Prepaid transport cards: about 305.6 million trips were made (-15.9% YoY) using the SUBE card in April, totaling $0.18 trillion (an increase of 0.7% YoY in real terms).
− QR trips: 24.7 million trips were made in May, totaling $29.8 billion, mainly on buses (22 million, 89.3% of the total) and on the different subway lines (2.7 million, 10.7%).

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

In the month of analysis, 86.7% of the operations were carried out in pesos, entering the open circulation system (SCA) 71.1 thousand invoices in that currency for $ 1.7 trillion.

Withdrawals

89% of withdrawals were made from ATMs, a channel that registered a 33% year-on-year drop in the number of operations and 13% in its total real amount.
− ATMs: in April (latest available data) 40.2 million withdrawals were made from the 16,942 available ATMs for a total of $4.1 billion, with approximately 2,373 being the average number of withdrawals at each ATM in the month. The average withdrawal amount reached $103.2k.
− Extrabank withdrawals with debit cards: 3.1 million withdrawals for $0.2 billion, with an average amount of $67 thousand.
− Extra-bank withdrawals from intra-PSPCP (“closed loop”) payment accounts: 2.1 million withdrawals for $0.15 billion, with an average amount of $70.7 thousand.

May Regulatory Summary

During the month of May, there were no communications issued regarding the national payment system.