Card payments rise 109 percent in June
ISTANBUL
Payments made with credit cards, debit cards and prepaid cards hit 639 billion Turkish Liras ($23.7 billion) in June, rising 109 percent from a year ago, according to the data from the Interbank Card Center (BKM).
Total card payments grew 2 percent from May.
Credit card payments rose by 112 percent from June last year to 515 billion liras, while debit cards made up 113.2 billion liras of the total sum, up 1,000 percent from a year ago.
Payment with prepaid cards amounted to 10.6 billion liras in June, rising 98 percent year-on-year.
The number of transactions with credit, debit and prepaid cards rose by 25 percent to 1.3 billion, with credit cards accounting for 736 million and debit cards for 510 million of them.
The Banking Supervision and Regulation Agency (BDDK) recently announced a decision that introduced curbs on the use of credit cards.
According to the decision, payments by installment for foreign travel, including flights, travel agency fees and accommodation, will not be allowed.
There were a total of 108.3 million credit cards in use in Türkiye as of June, up 19 percent.
The number of debit cards increased by 13 percent to 179 million, while prepaid cards rose 25 percent to 79.8 million.
