Transactions carried out by bank cards in Tunisia during the first quarter of 2024 were used at a rate of 36% for payment, compared to 64% for money withdrawals. These total more than 37.3 million transactions carried out by bank cards, mobilizing a total envelope of 6.3 billion dinars, an increase of 7.5% in terms of the number of transactions and 9.7% in terms of value compared to the same period of 2023, according to the bulletin of the Central Bank of Tunisia (BCT) on “Payments in figures in Tunisia”, made public Thursday, May 9, 2024.
The BCT thus reported an increase in the number of bank cards used in Tunisia by 1.1% to 7,128 thousand cards, compared to the end of December 2023. Likewise, the number of ATMs (automated teller machines), and ATMs (automated teller machines) increased by 0.9% to 3,235 ATMs/ATMs.
Regarding mobile payment, the number of transactions increased nine-fold, from 33.4 thousand transactions at the end of March 2023 (for an amount of 5.4 million dinars -MDT), to 303 thousand transactions ( worth 43.8 MTD), at the end of March 2024.
Regarding electronic payment (E-payment), the Issuing Institute revealed an increase of 42.6% in number to 4.3 million transactions and of 26.2% in value, to 275.3 MTD. It should be noted that there are currently 1,177 active merchant sites and 36,000 VSEs in Tunisia.
As for operations carried out by telecleared means of payment, during the first quarter of 2024, the BCT document shows a drop in the number of operations carried out by bills of exchange (-7% to 420 thousand operations for an amount of 8.3 billion dinars) and by checks (-3.4% to 6.122 million operations representing an amount of 30.9 billion dinars). The rejection rate for bills of exchange and checks is 11.5% and 1.47% respectively.
As for the number of operations carried out via direct debits, it recorded an increase of 20.6% (to 1.5 million operations) for an amount of 6.3 billion dinars, compared to stabilization for those carried out by transfers (8.32 million operations mobilizing an amount of 13.1 billion dinars).
