Report on Retail Payments, February 2025

Monthly Report on Retail Payments, February 2025

The report analyzes information as of February 2025, except for that involving withdrawals, credit cards, debit cards and transportation cards, which is updated as of January 2025, and that on prepaid cards, which is updated as of December 2024.

Envíos de dinero (transferencias inmediatas "push"): reportaron un crecimiento en cantidades del 33 % i.a.

• Instant push transfers increased 33% y.o.y. in volume.
• In pesos: there were 518.2 million instant push transfers for an amount of ARS49.6 trillion, climbing 33% y.o.y. in volume, and 47% y.o.y. in value. Seventy-five point four 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 (144.4% y.o.y.) for an amount of USD2,947.1 million (157.9% y.o.y.).

Instant pull transfers reached 36.1 million transactions.

• There were 36.1 million transfers for an amount of ARS2.6 trillion, -6.6% in volume and -1.6% in value against January.

Payments by transfer (pagos con transferencia, PCTs): transactions with interoperable QR codes totaled 58.4 million.

There were 60.7 million (61.4% y.o.y.) interoperable PCTs for ARS1,139.5 billion (89.1% y.o.y.).

• QR code payments: 96.2% of interoperable PCTs were initiated through QR codes, accounting for 58.4 million payments (91.4% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS1,091.7 billion (138.3% y.o.y.). Payments from sight accounts represented 49.7%, and payments from payment accounts, 50.3%. Moreover, 27.5% of stores credited the funds collected to sight accounts, and 72.5% did so to payment accounts.
  Seventy-three interoperable e-wallets and forty-two PCT acquirers are currently registered with the BCRA.
• Token payments: 3.8% of interoperable PCTs were made through a token, accounting for 2.3 million payments (-60.8% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS47.7 billion (-60.8% 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 January, out of 54 million accounts, there were 14.2 million payment accounts with balances totaling ARS522.4 billion, whereas money market funds reached ARS4.4 trillion. Payment accounts and money market funds jointly accounted for 6.19% of total private sector deposits in pesos, which amounted to ARS79.8 trillion in January. Currently, there are 175 PSPCPs registered.

Direct debits:

There were 11.7 million debits (5.2% y.o.y.) for an amount of ARS1.3 trillion (22.6% y.o.y.), reaching a 50.7% success rate.

Checks: e-checks accounted for 79% of cleared amounts.

• A total of 4.4 million checks (in paper and electronic form) were cleared for ARS14.5 trillion. The share of e-checks in total cleared checks was 53.8% (2.4 million) in terms of volume and 79% (ARS11.5 trillion) in terms of value.
• Checks returned for insufficient funds: the rate of returned checks for insufficient funds over total cleared checks was 0.95% in terms of volume, and 0.7% in terms of value.

Cards: debit card use remained above credit card use.

• Debit cards: there were 230.6 million debit card transactions for an amount of ARS5.3 trillion, exhibiting a change of -6.9% y.o.y. in volume, and of -1.4% y.o.y. in value.
• Credit cards: the number of credit card transactions reached 156.7 million for an amount of ARS7.2 trillion, changing 9.2% y.o.y. in volume, and 13.9% y.o.y. in value. The channels used included: POS and QR, 42%; e-commerce, 32%; and automatic debit, 16%.
• Prepaid cards: there were 37.5 million payments for an amount of ARS674.6 billion, climbing 75% y.o.y. in volume and 67.1% y.o.y. in value.

Transportation prepaid cards:

There were 294.5 million trips (-13.9% y.o.y.) paid with SUBE cards for a total of ARS109.8 billion (165% y.o.y.).

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

In February, 89.1% of transactions were made in pesos, with 105.5 thousand electronic invoices processed in the system for the open transfer of e-invoices (sistema de circulación abierta, SCA) for an amount of ARS1 trillion.

Withdrawals:

Ninety percent of withdrawals were made from ATMs.

• Withdrawals from ATMs: there were 70.5 million withdrawals from 17,160 ATMs for an amount of ARS3.4 trillion. The average number of monthly withdrawals per ATM was 4,109, averaging ARS48.8 thousand in terms of value.
• Non-bank withdrawals through debit cards: there were 4.7 million transactions amounting to ARS233.8 billion, withdrawals averaging ARS49.4 thousand in terms of value.
• Non-bank withdrawals from payment accounts belonging to the same PSPCP (closed loop): 2.9 million transactions for an amount of ARS141.9 billion, with an average withdrawal amount of ARS47.7 thousand.

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March 28, 2025