Credit and bank card spending at Turkey’s gas stations is on the rise and reached over US$82.6 billion in half a decade, according to data released by Turkish Statistical Institute, Turkstat.
The total card payment amount at Turkey’s gas stations increased by 5 percent reaching $20 billion in 2014. The number of credit card transactions reached 273 million with expenditure of $19 billion, while bank card transactions reached 50 million with $1.4 billion expenditure.
In the past five years, $190.4 billion was spent using credit cards and $10.6 billion using bank cards through transactions worth 1.46 billion in Turkey’s gas stations.
The use of credit cards are favored in Turkey's gas stations for bonus gas campaigns.
There are 18.7 million land vehicles in Turkey. Of these vehicles, more than half are cars. There are around 9.7 million cars, 3 million vans, 2.8 million motorcycles, 1.6 million tractors, 774 thousand trucks, 426 thousand minibuses and 212 thousand autobuses throughout the country.
Gasoline and diesel fuels contain levied taxes which make these fuels less preferable. Turkish consumers use one of the most expensive gasoline and diesel fuels in the world.
By Ata Ufuk Seker
Anadolu Agency
auseker@aa.com.tr