People’s card debts continue to pile up

Bloomberg

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The number of those that are unable to pay personal loans and credit card payments reached 138,987 in the first month of the year, doubling the figure from a year earlier. The most noteworthy rise occurred in loan debtors. The rise of the number of personal loan debtors climbed 4.5 fold compared to last year. Industry and trade have turned upside down because of bad checks. In February, the number of bad checks rose 53.1 percent, compared to the same month of last year. Within the last six months, during which the impacts of the crisis have increased, bad checks is said to have risen five times.

Non-performing loans at banks climbed to 2.1 billion Turkish liras as of January, amounting to 2.5 percent of total loan debt. Non-performing credit card loans climbed 2.477 billion liras, reaching 7.5 percent of aggregate credit card debt. In January, 82,714 people could not pay their credit card debts, amounting to a two-fold increase, compared to the same period of last year, according to the data from the Central Bank. The figure stood at 49,719 people last year. The number of personal loan debtors rose from 12,431 people to 56,273 people. Personal loan debtors rose 4.5 fold. There were 62,150 consumers that failed to repay their card and personal loan debts to banks last year in January. However, the figure reached to 138,987 this year. The number of total debtors almost doubled.

Non-performing personal loans

Non-performing personal loan amount at banks stood at 2.5 percent of total loans in January. As of Jan. 30, the non-performing personal loan amount dropped 1.8 billion liras while total personal loan debt fell 80.445 billion liras. As of Feb. 27, non-performing loan amount reached 2.265 billion liras. Total loan debt deteriorated to 80.311 billion liras, and non-performing loan rate climbed to 2.8 percent. As of the end of January, total credit card debt was 33 billion liras, and out of that figure 2.4 billion liras was non-performing. The rate of non-performing credit cards was 7.5 percent. As of the end of February, credit card debt dropped to 32.5 billion liras while non-performing credit card debt rose to 2.7 billion liras. The non-performing rate reached 8.2 percent in February.