Monthly Report on Retail Payments, December 2024

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

Instant push transfers increased 43% y.o.y. in volume.

• In pesos: there were 603.4 million instant push transfers for an amount of ARS54.9 trillion, climbing 43% y.o.y. in volume, and 29.8% y.o.y. in value. Seventy-three point eight percent of transfers were made from or to a virtual account through a single virtual code known as CVU.
• In foreign currency: there were 1.9 million transactions (159.1% y.o.y.) for an amount of USD3,134 million (182.6% y.o.y.).

Instant pull transfers reached 46.5 million transactions.

• There were 46.5 million transfers for an amount of ARS3.2 trillion, rising 14.4% in volume and 27.6% in value against November.

Payments by transfer (pagos con transferencia, PCTs): transactions with interoperable QR codes totaled 62.6 million.

• Interoperable: there were 66.9 million (58% y.o.y.) interoperable PCTs for ARS1,152.4 billion (23.1% y.o.y.).
• QR code payments: 93.5% of interoperable PCTs were initiated through interoperable QR codes, accounting for 62.6 million payments (117.4% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS1,052.9 billion (114.3% y.o.y.). Payments from sight accounts represented 66.5%, and payments from payment accounts, 33.5%. Moreover, 46.1% of stores credited the funds collected to sight accounts, and 53.9% did so to payment accounts.
  Sixty-seven interoperable e-wallets are currently registered with the BCRA.
• Token payments: 6.5% of interoperable PCTs were made through a token, accounting for 4.3 million payments (-32.3% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS99.4 billion (-34.3% 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 November, out of 53.1 million accounts, there were 14.4 million payment accounts with balances totaling ARS432.4 billion, whereas money market funds reached ARS3.4 trillion. Payment accounts and money market funds jointly accounted for 5.31% of total private sector deposits in pesos, which amounted to ARS72.8 trillion in November. Currently, there are 168 PSPCPs registered.

Direct debits:

There were 12.4 million debits (7.4% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS1.2 trillion (16.6% y.o.y.), reaching a 52.4% success rate.

Checks: e-checks accounted for 78% of cleared amounts.

• A total of 5.1 million checks (in paper and electronic form) were cleared for ARS15.5 trillion. The share of e-checks in total cleared checks was 52.1% (2.6 million) in terms of volume and 78% (ARS12.1 trillion) in terms of value.
• Checks returned for insufficient funds: the rate of returned checks for insufficient funds over total cleared checks was 0.77% in terms of volume, and 0.6% in terms of value.

Cards: debit card use remained above credit card use.

• Debit cards: there were 232.9 million debit card transactions for an amount of ARS4.9 trillion, exhibiting a change of -7.7% y.o.y. in volume, and of -12.2% y.o.y. in value.
• Credit cards: the number of credit card transactions reached 173.3 million for an amount of ARS8.1 trillion, changing 22.9% y.o.y. in volume, and 7.8% y.o.y. in value. The channels used included: POS and QR, 42%; e-commerce, 32.4%; and automatic debit, 15.4%.
• 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 372 million trips (-12.5% y.o.y.) paid with SUBE cards for a total of ARS120.9 billion (128.5% y.o.y.).

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

In November, 88.8% of transactions were made in pesos. In other words, 125.8 thousand electronic invoices for an amount of ARS1.2 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 80.7 million withdrawals from 17,107 ATMs for an amount of ARS3.2 trillion. The average number of monthly withdrawals per ATM was 4,721, averaging ARS39.1 thousand in terms of value.
• Non-bank withdrawals through debit cards: there were 5.2 million transactions amounting to ARS225.9 billion, withdrawals averaging ARS43.7 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 ARS145.1 billion, withdrawals averaging ARS42.9 thousand in terms of value.

 

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January 31, 2025