Schemes of purchases in instalments carrying zero interest havebeen driving sales of credit cards this year, despite the prolongedrecession and clients' rising reluctance to lending products.
Raiffeisen introduced the facility in spring and says that inMay-September period sales of new cards remained flat from a yearago, with the value of approved lines of credit standing at 60m RON(around 14m euros). After the first nine months, Raiffeisen had aportfolio of 328,000 credit cards, ranking second on this segmentafter Turkey's Credit Europe Bank, which was the first to bringthis model domestically.
Garanti, the domestic subsidiary of one of Turkey's most powerfulfinancial groups, in late September reached a portfolio of 108,000cards. "In the first nine months of this year, we sold 34,000credit cards, lower against the same period of last year," statedthe bank's representatives. The bank expects to end 2010 with115,000 issued cards, way below early 2010 expectations.
Retailers have rapidly embraced the system in a bid to boost saleshurt by recession.
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