More than 14 million cashless transactions were recorded in Bahrain last month, 74 per cent higher than the same period in 2021, reflecting a nationwide surge in contactless and digital payments.
Data released by the Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) yesterday also shows the value of point-of-sale (PoS) and e-commerce transactions jumped 65.2 per cent to BD331.6 million in June 2022 when compared with June 2021.
The figures attest to the Covid-19 pandemic triggering a shift in payment behaviour among consumers who previously primarily transacted in cash, or were moderate card spenders, particularly when it comes to
- eating out
- shopping
- paying the bills
- and keeping well
A break-up of last month’s 14,303,539 transactions in total shows that the highest number of payments last month were made in restaurants (4,918,592), followed by supermarkets (3,185,320), government services (949,780), health services (882,294) and clothing and footwear stores (626,411).
In terms of value, government services at BD90m led the top five sectors, with restaurants at BD38.8m coming next, followed by supermarkets (BD33m), clothing and footwear (BD16.8m) and automobile dealers (BD16m).
The infographic shows electronic fund transfers in the kingdom increased during June 2022, extending the rising trend to more than 16 months.
Transactions using Fawri, Fawri+ and Fawateer services, enabled by the electronic fund transfer system (EFTS), continue to see substantial growth.
Fawri+ is an almost real-time fund transfer service which allows individuals or entities to transfer funds of up to BD1,000 per day in less than 30 seconds; whereas Fawri is a deferred settlement fund transfer service which allows individuals or entities to transfer any amount within a few hours of the business day, and Fawateer provides real-time bill payments.
Last month, Fawri+ accounted for the vast majority (91.5pc) of EFTS transactions, followed by Fawateer at 4.5pc and Fawri at 4pc.
The number of transactions completed through Fawri+ in June 2022 amounted to 20,524,135, up 92.92pc from June 2021.
In terms of transaction value, Fawri was the leader at 74.4pc, followed by Fawri+ at 22.5pc and Fawateer at 3.1pc. Fawri transactions amounted to BD1.768 billion last month, up 36.76pc from the same month last year, whereas Fawri+ deals added up to a total of BD533.9m.
Also presented by the CBB was last month’s record of real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system transactions, where the value of interbank transactions was BD9.213bn (4,501 in volume), while customer deals added up BD907m (22,697 in volume).
Further reinforcing the move to cashless spending was the 7.06pc year-on-year rise in the value of successful payment gateway transactions to BD74.47m. This has been accompanied by a corresponding 2.2pc drop in volume of successful ATM withdrawals to 1.18m, despite their value rising 6.8pc to BD119.74m.
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