In the midst of the recession suffered by the economy, the central bank published the latest monthly retail payments report. There some changes could be seen in the trend of use of payment methods: The use of QR and debit cards grew, but ATM withdrawals fell 20%.
The work detailed that 89.7 million withdrawals were made at ATMs during February, while in January these types of operations had reached 109,400,000.
In this way, in the second month of the year the number of operations was reduced by 22% compared to January 2024. However, the average amount per extraction remained stable, standing at $20,400.
The BCRA report highlighted that they also decreaseds “extra-bank” withdrawals, that is, the withdrawal of money in the Insupermarkets and/or pharmacies. In February, 10% fewer operations were carried out than in January.
Greater preference for digital payments
These data reflect that Argentines increasingly use virtual payment methods. 81.2% of operations began with interoperable QRs, which represents more than 30.5 million payments (322.2% yoy) for $274.6 billion (235.3% yoy). 76.9% were made by clients who used their demand accounts and 23.1% their payment accounts. Likewise, 54.9% of businesses credited demand accounts and 45.1% credited payment accounts.
But at the same time, with more than 60 virtual wallets officially declared by the Central Bank, users also used them to invest the balances in FCI money market that reached 1.1 trillion pesos in the month where Mercado Pago, Personal Pay and Ualá concentrate the largest percentage of the market.
Another trend: the use of cards
As reflected in the document, the use of debit cards continues over credit cards.
− Debit: 247.7 million transactions were carried out for $2.9 trillion, with
variations of 30.6% yoy in quantities and -0.8% yoy in amounts.
− Credit card: interannual variations of 16.1% are observed in quantities and –
6.6% in amounts, making 122 million payments for $2.9 trillion.
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Source: Ambito
