At a meeting presenting the developments of 2018 in efforts toward card payments and a cashless society in Turkey, the data shared by BKM (Interbank Card Center) shows that card payments are becoming more and more a part of our daily lives.
Soner Canko, General Manager of the Interbank Card Center, announced that according to BKM data, the total card payment amount grew 21% in 2018 to reach TL 817 billion.
Canko noted that consumer habits in debit card usage have changed in recent years, with the payment amount made by credit card rising 18% and the amount made by debit card rising 38%. He said that in 2018, 1 in every 3 card payments was made with a debit card, that in 2017 the number of purchases made with debit cards exceeded the number of cash withdrawals for the first time, and that 3 out of every 5 debit card transactions are now purchases.
Canko stated that last year the number of credit cards rose 6% and the number of debit cards rose 11%, with credit cards reaching 66.3 million and debit cards reaching 146.4 million in 2018, for a total of approximately 213 million cards.
Soner Canko also gave information about the sectors with the largest growth in card payments in 2018. “In 2018, as in the previous year, the airline sector showed the biggest increase in card payments. Card payments in the airline sector rose 44% last year to reach TL 20.6 billion. This sector was followed by restaurants with a 29% increase and TL 36.7 billion in card payments, accommodation with a 28% increase and TL 17.6 billion, health products & cosmetics with a 28% increase and TL 32 billion, and fuel stations with a 27% increase and TL 78.1 billion in card payments.”
Assessing the sectors by transaction volume as well, Canko said that the sector with the most card payments was supermarkets and shopping malls with TL 148 billion, followed by fuel with TL 78 billion, clothing with TL 68 billion, small food retail with TL 57 billion, and electronics with TL 45 billion.
Canko emphasized that as the use of debit cards on the internet spreads rapidly, the number of people with online shopping experience is also growing every day. Reporting that online payments, which were TL 99 billion in 2017, rose 40% in 2018 to TL 139 billion, Canko said that, driven by the young population and digital transformation, the share of internet card payments in the total has exceeded 16%.
Canko also said that a record was broken last year in foreign spending made with card payments: “According to BKM data, purchases made in our country with foreign cards in 2018 doubled compared to the previous year, while the foreign share of card payments made domestically exceeded 5%, a record. August 13, 2018 was the day with the highest payments made in Turkey with foreign cards, at TL 281 million. In one year, 17 million different foreign cards were used, with TL 2,600 paid per card.”
Canko reported that the number of contactless-enabled cards, which was 42 million in 2017, rose 40% in 2018 to 58 million.
Noting that the number of contactless-enabled terminals in Turkey exceeded 1 million in 2018, Canko said that contactless-enabled terminals account for 52% of the total number of terminals.
Canko commented: “In 2015 the number of contactless-enabled terminals was only 300 thousand. Now this figure has exceeded 1 million. In other words, we can say that contactless acceptance points have quadrupled since 2015. Now 1 in every 2 card acceptance points supports contactless.”
Underlining that users confidently prefer contactless payment for higher-value transactions as well, Canko said that the number of contactless payments in 2018 was 2.5 times that of 2017.
He also said it has been observed that people who prefer contactless payment are more loyal card users than those who do not, and Canko continued:
“These users prefer card payments 32% more. While contactless transactions numbered 88 million in 2017, this figure rose 2.5 times to 213 million in 2018. The average contactless transaction amount rose from TL 26 in 2017 to TL 31 in 2018. The number of contactless payments rose to 7 times that of 2015. The contactless payment record was broken on December 31 with 1 million transactions made by 700 thousand different cards. Monthly contactless transactions reached 25 million, and 1 in every 6 cards was used for contactless payments.”
The Interbank Card Center also revealed the “bests” of card payments in 2018. The “bests” of the payments ecosystem last year are as follows:
- “The highest number of card payments, 21 million, took place on June 14, the Eve of Ramadan Feast (Eid al-Fitr).
- The day with the highest transaction amount in 2018 was July 31, with TL 3.7 billion, when motor vehicle tax (MTV) payments were made.
- The most card payments, TL 74.2 billion, took place in September, which covers the back-to-school period.
- A record was broken on November 23, Magnificent Friday (Black Friday), with 2.1 million different cards used for online payments.
- The highest amount of online card payments, TL 1.1 billion, took place on November 30, when tax restructuring payments were made.
- On December 31, a contactless payment record was broken with 1 million transactions made by 700 thousand different cards.”
Soner Canko noted that 28 out of every 100 cards issued to cardholders in 2018 carried the TROY logo, and said: “Since the beginning of 2017, when TROY cards began reaching users, the number of TROY-logo cards has increased steadily, and in 2018 1 in every 4 cards in wallets became a TROY card.” Emphasizing that two important outcomes emerge from the big picture of TROY cardholders, Canko said: “First, we see that TROY owners are not people who already had a card, but people who had never used a card before. By getting a ‘debit card’, these people spend only as much as they have in their accounts and use their cards as a ‘payment’ instrument.” In 2018 the number of transactions made with TROY-logo cards reached 100 million and the transaction volume reached TL 23 billion.
Considering that 13 million transactions were made with TROY-logo cards the previous year, TROY card usage grew approximately 8 times in 2018. Evaluating this result, Soner Canko said: “More importantly, this rapid growth comes not only from the 3 big cities such as Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, but also from Anatolian provinces such as Antalya, Adana, Bursa, Kayseri and Konya. On the other hand, when we examine transaction amounts, we see that 70% of transactions are made up of what we call ‘micro payments’, transactions under TL 50. As I mentioned before, this is another sign that TROY-logo cards are used as a payment instrument rather than a spending instrument.”
Canko also said that a record was broken last year in foreign spending made with card payments, stating: “According to BKM data, purchases made in our country with foreign cards in 2018 doubled compared to the previous year, while the foreign share of card payments made domestically exceeded 5%, a record. August 13, 2018 was the day with the highest payments made in Turkey with foreign cards, at TL 281 million. In one year, 17 million different foreign cards were used, with TL 2,600 paid per card.”
