Report on Retail Payments, March 2023

- Instant push transfers

• Administered by networks: there were 209.4 million instant push transfers for an amount of ARS5.7 trillion, climbing 109.7% y.o.y. in volume, and 23.9% y.o.y. in value. Fifty-nine point one percent of transfers (124.2 million) involved the use of a single virtual code known as CVU—identifying a payer and/or a payee account.
• Intra-PSPCP: instant transfers between accounts belonging to the same payment service provider that offers payment accounts (proveedor de servicios de pago que ofrece cuentas de pago, PSPCP) reached ARS337.1 billion (89.2% y.o.y.), amounting to 85.6 million transactions (152.4% y.o.y.).

- Payments by transfer (pagos con transferencia, PCTs): transactions with interoperable QR codes exceeded 8.5 million.

There were 166.8 million PCTs for a total of ARS662.9 billion; interoperable payments accounted for 16.1% in volume and 23.1% in value; and intra-PSPCP payments, for 83.9% in volume and 76.9% in value.

Interoperable PCTs: there were 31.2 million (56.8% y.o.y.) interoperable PCTs for a total of ARS172.8 billion (-1.4% y.o.y.).

• QR code payments: 27.5% of interoperable PCTs were initiated through interoperable QR codes, accounting for almost 8.6 million payments. Payments from sight accounts represented 81.7%, and payments from payment accounts, 18.3%. Moreover, 62% of stores credited the funds in sight accounts, and 38%, in payment accounts.
• POS card payments: 42.9% of interoperable PCTs (13.4 million) were made through debit cards at point-of-sale (POS) terminals.
• Token payments: 12.7% of interoperable PCTs (3.9 million) were made through a token.
• Payment buttons: 16.9% of interoperable PCTs (5.3 million) were online transactions.

- Intra-PSPCP PCTs: they reached 140 million for an amount of ARS509.7 billion, rising 125.5% y.o.y. in volume, and 84.5% y.o.y. in value.

• QR code payments: they accounted for 18.2%, reaching 25.5 million transactions (87.6% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS80.5 billion (59.8% y.o.y.).
• Online payments: they accounted for the remaining 81.8%, reaching 114.4 million transactions (136.1% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS429.2 billion (90% y.o.y.).

- Payment accounts and funds invested through PSPCPs: in February, 16.2 million payment accounts with balances totaling ARS100.9 billion were recorded, whereas the balances of mutual funds reached ARS186.8 billion. Payment accounts and mutual funds jointly accounted for 1.63% of total private sector deposits, which amounted to ARS17.6 trillion in that month.

- Instant debit (DEBIN): DEBINs increased 6.3% against February, exhibiting a growth rate of 131.3% y.o.y., and reaching 23.6 million transactions for an amount of ARS262.1 billion. In terms of the number of transactions, 0.4% were one-time DEBINs and 99.6%, recurring DEBINs.

- Direct debit: there were 11.2 million debits (3.1% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS254.3 billion (-3.4% y.o.y.), reaching a 51.5% success rate.

- Checks: electronic checks (ECHEQs) accounted for 61% of cleared amounts.

• A total of 4.9 million checks (in paper and electronic form) were cleared for ARS2.7 trillion. The share of ECHEQs in total cleared checks was 35.2% (1.7 million) in terms of volume and 60.7% (ARS1.6 trillion) in terms of value.
• Checks returned for insufficient funds: the rate of returned checks for insufficient funds over total cleared checks exhibited an increase of 0.89% in terms of volume, and of 0.65% in terms of value.

-Cards: debit card use exceeds credit card use

• Debit cards: there were 177.1 million debit card transactions for an amount of ARS804.8 billion, exhibiting a change of 12.3% y.o.y. in volume, and of -3.1% y.o.y. in value.
• Credit cards: the number of credit card transactions reached 103.4 million for an amount of ARS877.6 billion, changing 11.6% y.o.y. in volume, and -1.5% y.o.y. in value.

- Transportation prepaid cards: there were 293.1 million trips (17.9% y.o.y.) paid with SUBE cards for a total of ARS9.2 billion (11.3% y.o.y.).

- Electronic credit invoices for MSMEs (factura de crédito electrónica MiPyME, FCEM): in March, 89.6% of transactions involved 125.6 thousand electronic invoices in pesos for an amount of ARS248.2 trillion under the system for the open transfer of e-invoices (sistema de circulación abierta, SCA).

- Withdrawals from ATMs: there were 94.1 million withdrawals from 17,426 ATMs for an amount of ARS1,171.9 billion. The average number of monthly withdrawals per ATM was 5,398 with a monthly average amount of ARS12 thousand.

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April 28, 2023