Official statistics have unveiled that both Kuwaiti citizens and residents carried out a total of approximately 513.78 million transactions involving purchases and money withdrawals from January to June 2023.
Within this figure, 470.64 million transactions occurred within Kuwait, while 43.13 million transactions took place abroad. This trend aligns with the surge in payment devices deployed within Kuwait’s points of sale, exhibiting an annual growth rate of around 14%, reports Al-Anba daily.
The increment equates to 11,457 additional payment devices, totaling 93,304 devices by the end of June 2023. This starkly contrasts with the 81,847 devices present by June 2022, underscoring the significant expansion of commercial activities within the nation. This expansion necessitates an increased availability of point-of-sale devices to cater to consumer demands.
Delving into specifics, during the first half of the current year, citizens and residents witnessed an uptick of about 109.4 million transactions for direct purchases and money withdrawals from their bank accounts. This represents a notable surge of 27%, culminating in a total of 513.78 million transactions in comparison to the 404.37 million recorded during the same period in 2022.
The data showed that the majority of money withdrawals and purchases, approximately 92%, occurred within Kuwait, resulting in 470.64 million transactions throughout the initial six months of this year. On a year-on-year basis, these operations recorded a 26.5% increase, constituting about 98.752 million transactions in the first half of this year, compared to approximately 371.89 million during the corresponding period in 2022.
Conversely, about 8% of money withdrawals and purchases were conducted abroad, totaling around 43.13 million transactions during H1 2023. This marks a year-on-year surge of approximately 33%, translating to 10.65 million transactions compared to 32.48 million transactions recorded during H1 2022.
Direct point-of-sale purchases contributed significantly, accounting for over 64% of all purchases and withdrawals within the initial half of this year. This category encompassed 331.02 million direct purchases, reflecting a growth of 83.63 million purchases compared to the same duration in 2022. Within this, direct purchases in Kuwait constituted about 310.45 million transactions, with 20.57 million transactions occurring abroad.
While online transactions have shown considerable growth, they represented approximately 27.3% of total purchases during H1 2023, totaling 140.15 million purchases. On an annual basis, the online purchases and payments shot up by 26.56 million transactions, spanning from January to the end of June 2023, contrasting with the 113.58 million transactions during the same period in the previous year.
Of note, the online purchases and payments within Kuwait constituted the lion’s share, tallying 118.9 million purchases, juxtaposed with 21.22 million online transactions conducted outside the country.
Throughout the initial half of the year, Kuwait saw about 42.6 million ATM cash withdrawals both within and outside the nation. This figure accounted for approximately 8% of the total sum of purchase and withdrawal transactions. On a yearly basis, cash withdrawals underwent a decrease of 794.7 thousand transactions, compared to approximately 43.4 million transactions during H1 2022.
Domestically, withdrawals within Kuwait decreased by 698.8 thousand transactions, amounting to 41.26 million by the close of June 2023, compared to 41.96 million during the corresponding period in 2022. Simultaneously, withdrawals outside Kuwait reduced by 96 thousand transactions, summing up to about 1.34 million transactions by the end of June 2023, compared to 1.4 million transactions by the end of June 2022.
The dataset illustrated that the total number of various types of bank cards reached around 6.03 million cards by the conclusion of June 2023. The figures depicted a 12% rise in the number of cards, signifying an increase of about 658 thousand bank cards annually, culminating in 5.375 million bank cards by June’s end.
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