Baku, Azerbaijan, May 15
By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:
The Turkish Banking Supervision Agency has introduced a new gift card sale system in the country, Resmi Gazete reported on May 14.
Turkey canceled the gift card purchase procedure via credit cards as of May 13, according to the report.
The total number of credit cards in circulation exceeds 56 million cards, while there are 97 million debit cards, according to the report.
The report added that 30 percent of credit cards used in the country have a limit of up to 2,000 lira, 10 percent up to 10,000 lira and 4 percent more than 20,000 Turkish lira.
The amount of annual payments on credit cards is 34.6 billion Turkish liras, according to the Turkish Banking Supervision Agency.
The consumer credit market has greatly changed in Turkey since 2013. Turkish President Abdullah Gul approved the changes to the consumer protection law in November 2013.
Earlier, the banks charged the consumer for the loan payment before the agreed period; this mechanism was canceled after changing the law.
Turkish banks will be forced to reduce interest rates on loans to the consumers who paid the loans before the agreed term, according to the amendments to the law on protection of consumer rights.
Earlier, loan insurance was a mandatory procedure, but now it is voluntary.
A law on reducing the consumer loan issuance term entered into force in Turkey on February 1, 2014.
The payment terms on certain goods purchased on credit were canceled or reduced in Turkey, according to the new law.
However, Turkish companies have opposed reducing the loan maturity.
Households in the country received loans totaling 78 billion Turkish liras, while consumer credit volume reached 230 billion Turkish liras.
Loans totaling 104 billion Turkish liras were issued to purchase real estate in Turkey, while 8.3 billion Turkish liras was issued to purchase cars, according to the Turkish Banking Supervision Agency.
The official exchange rate is 2.0755 TRY/USD on May 15.
edited by CN