Credit card payments in Turkey surge to $36.7B in January

Duvar English

Total card payments in Turkey reached 1.61 trillion Turkish liras ($44.2B) in January, marking a 66% increase compared to the same period last year, according to data from the Interbank Card Center (BKM).

The surge was primarily driven by credit card transactions, which accounted for 1.37 trillion liras ($36.7B) of the total.

BKM data shows that as of January, the number of credit cards in Turkey stood at 130.2 million, while there were 195.6 million debit cards and 113.1 million prepaid cards.

Compared to January of the previous year, credit card numbers increased by 9%, debit cards by 3%, and prepaid cards by 24%.

The total number of payment cards rose by 10% year-over-year to 438.9 million.

Of the 1.61 trillion liras in card-based payments, 1.37 trillion liras was made using credit cards, while 207.8 billion liras came from debit cards and 32.4 billion liras from prepaid cards.

Credit Card Payments Up 69%

Payments made via credit cards surged by 69% compared to the same period last year, while debit card payments increased by 47% and prepaid card payments by 78%.

In terms of transaction volume, the total number of card-based payments rose by 12% year-over-year to 1.58 billion transactions. Credit cards accounted for 913.2 million of these transactions, while 538.1 million were made using debit cards and 125.9 million with prepaid cards.

The number of credit card transactions grew by 15% compared to the previous year, while debit card transactions increased by 8%, and prepaid card transactions saw an 18% rise.