The regulations made for credit cards have worked. With interest rates rising, many people have reduced the amount of cash advances they take from their credit cards.
Compared to the first quarter, these withdrawals decreased by 50.11 percent, and the real decrease was calculated as 54 percent.
Following the increase in the tendency to withdraw cash from credit cards and overdraft accounts in the first quarter, the interest rate applied to overdraft accounts and credit card cash withdrawals was adjusted to 5 percent as of March 16.
This rate was lower than the interest rates on consumer loans, and the default interest was increased to 5.3 percent. These measures resulted in a significant decrease in cash withdrawals from credit cards.
WHAT DO BKM DATA SAY?
According to Interbank Card Center (BKM) data, cash withdrawals from credit cards, which were 182.9 billion lira in the first quarter of last year, showed a significant increase in the first quarter of this year.
Cash withdrawals, which were 116.15 billion lira in January and 121.25 billion lira in February, decreased to 89.33 billion lira in mid-March due to the effect of interest rate hikes.
This change revealed that there was an increase of 78.65 percent in the first quarter of the year compared to the same period of the previous year and an increase of 21.6 percent compared to the last quarter of the previous year.
Total cash withdrawals from credit cards reached 326.74 billion lira in the first quarter of the year.
When the 15.06 percent increase in consumer inflation is adjusted, the real increase in this period is determined as 5.68 percent.
SHARP DECLINE IN CASH WITHDRAWALS
In the second quarter, cash withdrawals from credit cards continued to decline sharply, with withdrawals reaching 52 billion lira in May and 58.5 billion lira in June.
This showed that total credit card cash withdrawals fell to 162.99 billion lira in the second quarter.
Cash withdrawals from credit cards decreased by 50.11 percent in the second quarter compared to the first quarter.
When the 8.4 percent consumer inflation between the two quarters is adjusted, the real decline was 54 percent.
While this reduction resulted in a significant decrease in cash withdrawals from credit cards, the expected loss of momentum in credit card shopping expenditures was not achieved.
The maximum contractual interest rate for credit cards was determined as 4.25 percent, and the default interest rate was determined as 4.55 percent.
While purchases made via credit cards in the first quarter of the year increased to 2 trillion 565 billion 490 million liras, this figure expressed an increase of 18.4 percent compared to the last quarter of the year, and when inflation is adjusted, the real increase was announced as 2.90 percent.
LIMITS ARE NOT UPDATED
On the other hand, it was learned that many banks did not respond positively to limit update requests. Many banks started to request income documents from customers who wanted to update their limits.
