Card payments rise 130 percent in August

ISTANBUL

Payments made with credit cards, debit cards and prepaid cards stood at 799 billion Turkish Liras ($29 billion) in August, rising 131 percent from a year ago, according to the data from the Interbank Card Center (BKM).

Credit card payments soared 138 percent from August last year to 650.2 billion liras, while debit cards made up 135 billion liras of the total sum, up 100 percent from a year ago.

Payment with prepaid cards amounted to 13.6 billion liras in June, rising 122 percent year-on-year.

The number of transactions with credit, debit and prepaid cards rose by 30 percent to 1.4 billion, with credit cards accounting for 804 million and debit cards for 552 million of them.

There was a total of 111.4 million credit cards in use in Türkiye as of August, up 19 percent.

The number of debit cards increased by 13 percent to 183 million, while prepaid cards rose 25 percent to 83 million.

Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek recently indicated that new regulations could be introduced on loans and credit cards to control the growth of these products.