ANKARA
By Bahattin Gonultas
As Turkish banks implement regulations to curb credit card spending, a report says around 25 percent of Turks now carry two debit cards, they are being used more frequently, and the most common purchases are groceries and gasoline.
According to data from Turkey's Interbank Card Center, the number of card transactions in Turkey has increased by 18 percent since 2012, reaching 409 billion Turkish Lira (TL) (US$180 billion).
The total value of shopping by credit card was up 17 percent to 387 billion TL (US$170.8 billion) compared to 2012, while debit card shopping totalled 22 billion TL (US$9.71 billion), a rise of 36 percent.
On February 1, the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) imposed new measures to curb the use of credit cards to pay for goods in monthly installments, in the hope it would restrict the country´s growing inflation and current account deficit.
Food, mobile phones, gold and gasoline are no longer able to be paid for installments, while credit card installment plans for electronics, furniture and white goods will be limited to nine months.
The restrictions also aim to lift the domestic savings rate in the country from a historic low.
According to the data, the number of credit cards issued by banks rose by 5 percent to reach 56.8 million, while the number of debit cards issued increased by 10 percent to 100.2 million - Turkey's population is around 76 million.
Around 15 percent of all credit card payments were for grocery shopping, 11 percent for gasoline and 11 percent for clothing. Payments made for electronic items accounted for 8 percent of all shopping transactions.
Elsewhere, more and more Turks are using their cards online. The number of transactions reached 34.35 billion TL (US$15.16 billion) last year - 8.4 percent of all card transactions, compared to 7.2 percent in 2012.
The volume increased in terms of Turkish lira, but due to exchange rate fluctuation was down in dollar terms.
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