According to figures released by the bank on Monday, the total number of people with unpaid credit card and individual loan debt climbed to 119,943 in January. Counting every person once, the total number of people in Turkey who have defaulted on personal debt since 2005 grew to 1.93 million in January. The majority of these, some 1.27 million, failed to repay credit card debt while the remaining 667,823 did not pay their individual loan debt.
The number of people who failed to repay their credit card and individual loan debt surged in 2008 in particular, jumping from 2007’s 192,266 to 602,648, a 213 percent increase. Similar increases continued during the 2009 global financial crisis as well.
With credit card usage skyrocketing in Turkey over the past few years, the amount of unpaid debt has reached worrisome levels, alongside a problematic increase in non-performing loans. As part of an incentive introduced to help consumer credit card holders repay their debt last year, 487,989 credit card users signed agreements to restructure their credit card debt, which totaled TL 1.6 million.
