Turks are trying to reduce their credit card limits, bankers say, after President Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party proposed a bill that would raise fees for some cardholders as part of efforts to finance the defense industry.
The bill, submitted to parliament on Friday, also requires businesses and individuals to make additional contributions to the fund through their tax returns and envisages additional fees for Turks buying and selling real estate and vehicles.
But the credit card changes – which include an annual fee of 750 Turkish liras ($22) for cards with a maximum limit of more than 100,000 liras – have drawn particularly strong criticism from consumers and customers. economists.
Three bankers who spoke to Reuters said the move could reduce the number of credit cards used in Türkiye.
“We are seeing an increase in requests to lower credit card limits. Banks have started to discuss and plan for the impact of the proposed regulation. They will see what they can do to limit the impact,” he said. said one of the bankers, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Some social media users argued that such a fee was unfair because the credit card limit that a bank issues to a customer does not mean that amount will be spent.
Economist Mahfi Egilmez said on his X account that the reasoning behind the proposals was confusing.
“Tax cannot be levied on credit card limits or loans. A loan is a debt. Tax is collected from the creditor, not the debtor,” he wrote. “As we move away from science, we enter into a terrible confusion of concepts.
Some 126 million credit cards are used in Turkey, a country with a population of around 85 million, and some 1.25 trillion lira ($36.48 billion) worth of transactions were made in August, according to data from the Interbank Card Center (BKM).
Turks are increasingly relying on credit cards for purchases to survive years of high inflation that have eroded household incomes and savings, with more limited access to loans.
(1$ = 34.2644 lires)
