Turkey: drop in demand after Ankara government set limits on instalment buying
The measures adopted by the Ankara government to limit consumer instalment buying have had an immediate impact: according to the data supplied by the banking oversight authority, in the past five weeks the drop in deferred payment purchases amounted to 5.4 billion Turkish lire (about 1.75 billion euro). The new norms exclude the possibility to pay by instalment for daily-use items such as food, petrol and cell phones, and limits repayment of other semi-durable goods such as furniture or television sets to a 9-month period. Overall, following the entry into effect of these provisions, the aggregate value of instalments financed through bank credit cards has dropped to 43.9 billion lire (14.2 billion euro). Late or missed payments in 2013 involved approximately one million consumers.
(infoMercatiEsteri)
