Citizens abroad spend most in United States

ISTANBUL - Anatolia News Agency

Turkish credit and debit card usage shows concrete increase, data shows.

Turkish people shopping abroad last year spent most money in the United States via debit and credit cards, according to Turkey’s Interbank Card Center (BKM) data. Turks’ spending abroad via debit and credit cards jumped 33 percent in 2011. England, Italy, France and Germany followed the United States as the top market.

The volume created using cards for transactions hit 546 billion Turkish Liras last year, the data also showed. Expenditure via credit cards increased 24 percent, while the figure was 54 percent in debit cards.

Credit card holders made over 2.2 billion transactions in total, spending 291 billion liras, which was an 11 percent increase from 2010. The number of transactions via debit cards, which rose 15 percent in the same period, hit 1.69 billion, creating a total turnover of 255 billion liras.
The number of credit cards climbed 9 percent, exceeding 51 million. The number of debit cards was up 17 percent, hitting 81 million.