Morocco's Increase in ATMs and E-Commerce

Morocco's ATM network now has 6,732 machines around the country with the installation of 203 new branches during the first half of 2016, an increase of 3.1% compared to the numbers in December 2015

According to the Centre For Interbank Electronic Banking (CMI) the network has seen an increase of 129.1 million dirhams in withdrawals by Moroccan and foreign bank cards for a total of 112.3 billion dirhams a growth of 8.7% in terms of withdrawals and 9.2% in value.

Cards issued by the Moroccan banks numbered 12.3 million, an increase of 3.9% compared to December 2015. The major cards are Visa, MasterCard and the national brand CMI. The growth is due to a significant increase the number of cards, with MasterCard up 10.4% and CMI also up 10.4% and a moderate increase in the number of private cards (+ 0.9%) and Visa (+ 0.7%) compared to the numbers at the end December 2015.

Prepaid (debit) cards, represent 1.6 million cards - 48.4% of CMI cards, 49.5% of Visa and MasterCard cards and 2.1% for store cards.

At the same time e-commerce is booming with 873.4 million dirhams generated in the first half of 2016, an increase of 35.4% compared to the same period last year. The activity totaled 1.7 million Moroccan and foreign transactions via bank cards, an increase of 51.6%. Moroccan bank cards stand out with strong growth in transactions, which reached 1.6 million (+ 52%), while the amount generated was $ 793 million DH (+ 38.1%). For their part, online payments, foreign cards represent 80.4 million dirhams (+ 13%), ie 59,556 transactions (+ 42%).

There has been a welcome change in the number of transactions that can now be done online, including car registration, police checks for resident cards and other government services.

However, the use of cheques has run into a few problems with 598,700 Moroccans having cheque facilities withdrawn because of misuse or bounced cheques which, according to the Bank of Morocco amount to a total of 72 billion 500 million dirhams.

The central services of the bank handled 2701 complaints in the past year, an increase of 11.5%, but they have lifted the ban on 196 cases deemed to be erroneous. Hopefully, with the increase in electronic payments, cheques will be a ting of the past.

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ATM GROWTH IN MOROCCO

Last year saw a big jump in the number of ATMs in Morocco, with the installation of 480 new terminals, to bring the total number to 5,024. This is an increase over 2010 by 10.6 percent.

The number of credit cards in circulation in Morocco also rose last year with a 13.6 percent increase compared to 2010. The total now is over 8 million cards issued. Just over 85% of the cards (6.9 million) were issued under the brand names of VISA, Mastercard and Moroccan brand CMI.

Last year, the number of transactions through credit cards reached 187.5 million for a total value of 160.3 billion dirhams(19 billion USD) This amount represents a 15.9 percent increase on a yearly basis. In 2010, the number of credit card transactions in the Moroccan market reached 178.3 million, with a total value of 145.9 billion dirhams. Foreign cards totaled only 9.7 million transactions for 14.4 billion dirhams. However, according to CMI, the sustained growth of the Moroccan cards made up for the slight decline in activity for foreign cards.

By type of operation, payments dominated over 93 percent of total operations. Foreign cards accounted for 38.3 percent of the payment value with 5.5 billion dirhams, a slight decline of 1.8 percent compared to 2010.

In regard to withdrawals of cash, international cards represent 61.7 percent of total ATM transactions in the kingdom with 8.9 billion dirhams, down 0.8 percent compared to 2010. Meanwhile, Moroccan credit cards were used in 272,000 transactions abroad, including withdrawals and payments, for a total of 534.2 million of dirhams, up 30.8 percent over 2010.

In 2011, the total amount of online transactions in Morocco reached a turnover of more than 513 million dirhams. This figure reflects a spurt of 72 percent compared to the turnover recorded in 2010, which amounted to 298 million dirhams. During the past year, some 714,000 e-payment transactions were made, more than double (116 percent) compared with the previous year.

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