Turkey

Turkish e-commerce

Turkey hosts one of the quickest growing e-commerce markets in the world. In the next few years, a growth of 19% per year is expected. In 2017, Turks spent 141$ US per capita online and, by contrast, 2,494$ US per capita at point of sale locations. A quarter of online shoppers already use mobile phones and m-commerce should triple by 2022.

Preferred payment method

Less than a quarter of transactions in Turkey are not made by credit card, Visa and MasterCard being the most popular card providers. In addition to physical cards, virtual cards are also very popular. In the future, online transfer, e-wallets and other digital payment methods should become more popular. Mobile wallets were used to pay for 4% of e-commerce and 2% of POS transactions in 2017. Prepaid cards are currently seldom used although they are growing in popularity. PayU, iPara, PaymentWall, iyzico and Skrill are all payment service providers working in Turkey.

In order to boost the appeal of credit and debit cards, most leading bank in Turkey are offering reward systems. Combined with promotional campaigns in collaboration with leading retailers and services providers, it had a positive impact on the volume and value of the card transactions. Credit limit and installments are regulated by restrictive measures by the government. The relative relaxation of those regulations, in 2015, can also be attribute to the increase of use of credit cards, notably to payments of consumer appliances and home furnishings in installments.

Cross-border commerce

Cross-border transactions are relatively limited in Turkey, as online purchases are still very limited to the domestic market. Only a fifth of the population considered international purchasing. This is however slowly changing, as this sector increase by 29% between 2013 and 2015.

Perspectives for the future

An increasing number for Turks will acquire a bank account, as the shift towards electronic wage and expense payment continues. This, along with efforts by the Interbank Card Center and local banks will continue to encourage the evolution towards a cashless society.

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