Determinants of Electronic Card Bank Holding by Iranian Urban Households (in Persian)

According to Iranian National Payment System, most of the electronic banking services require holding of electronic bank cards in the form of debit or credit. Hence, in this study we use the results of a sample that was conducted by Central Bank of Iran during 2008 in which 6055 households, who live in urban area, were asked which banking services they have access to. We design a probit model to identify social and economic factors that affect the use of e-cards by Iranian urban adults. Our findings show that male or young individuals, people with higher level of education and also people who live in households with higher level of expenditures use e-cards more than others. In addition, people who live in Tehran with respect to residents of other large cities use debit cards more, while this latter group hold e-cards more than those who live in small cities. Furthermore, divorced and widowed spouses hold e-cards more than married people, while within families use of e-cards by children and other members is less than head of family. In addition, unemployed individuals, housekeepers and students have fewer e-cards than employed people who themselves use e-cards less than retired persons. Finally people who have active saving deposit, current deposit and investment deposit accounts respectively use banking cards more than others. JEL Classification Codes: G21, D12, C21