Cash Dominates Moroccan Payments: 80% of Card Transactions Used for ATM Withdrawals

Despite an overall improvement in the performance of the monetary activity, it remains that the option for which bank cards are more commonly used is cash withdrawal, revealed the latest statistics from the Interbank Monetary Center (CMI).

According to the same source, cash withdrawal still accounts for 80.6% of the operations carried out by card holders and totals 316 million units for 286.8 billion dirhams. They also represent 90.3% of the total amount of operations in the Kingdom, and 8.6% more than in 2018.

As for the data, which account for withdrawal operations, cash advance operations, payments by Moroccan or foreign bank cards, they reached 413.8 million operations for a total amount of 346.3 billion dirhams (32.6 billion euros) last year, the CMI indicates.

Furthermore, the Center notes a 10.4% increase in terms of operations and 9.7% in value, compared to the previous year. Across the kingdom, as of December 31 last year, there were 16.2 million outstanding cards, an increase of 7.6% compared to the previous year, the same source supports. Contrary to the global trend, the number of ATMs in Morocco is not declining, as Moroccan banks have installed 324 new ATMs, bringing their number to 7,613, it is specified.