Electronic payment channels are growing in popularity, with online and card payments higher during the recent festive season than previous years.
In December, BankservAfrica processed an average of three million card transactions each day, at transaction speeds of up to 134 deals a second. BankservAfrica acts as a clearing house for transactions between SA's financial institutions.
Brad Gillis, CEO of the regulated payments cluster, says the figures show consumers seemed to be more confident to spend during the past festive period in comparison to December 2009.
“A record total of nearly 30 million interbank ATM transactions occurred this past December, with the average ATM withdrawal amount being R554, up 5% from December 2009,” says Gillis.
Back to growth
Gillis explains that during the recent international economic slump, BankservAfrica saw electronic fund transfers and credit card growth slow between 2008 and 2009, but a recovery was seen in the growth rate for 2010.
Last December, BankservAfrica processed 67 million interbank credit and debit card transactions during December 2010 at points-of-sale devices at retailers.
Debit card transactions showed the highest volume growth year-on-year, with over 33 million debit card transactions recorded in December 2010, a 26% increase in debit card transaction volumes from December 2009.
Gillis explains these figures reflect pre-2008 growth levels, with an average per-transaction growth higher than inflation. “An average debit card transaction value at point-of-sale was R302, while the average value for a credit card transaction was R476 at point-of-sale.”
In December 2010, BankservAfrica processed electronic transactions, such as debit orders and account and salary payments, to the value of over R500 billion, which came to just over 65 million actual transactions. This is in contrast to the declining use of cheques.
First National Bank (FNB) says during December, the biggest growth area year-on-year was in Internet banking, which saw an increase of 27% in transactions. At peak times, the bank processed about 140 deals a second. Five years ago, 33 transactions were processed a second.
Mobile banking and purchases of prepaid products, such as airtime, grew just over 18% year-on-year and point-of-sale transactions grew 16% year-on-year.
An FNB spokesman attributes the growth to increasing popularity of the channels, as well as economic recovery to some extent. He expects electronic transactions to continue growing because of the convenience factor of not having to draw cash.
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