Card payments in Türkiye neared 3 trillion lira in August, online card spending grew 41%
According to the August 2026 bulletin of Türkiye's Interbank Card Center (BKM), card payments reached 2,990.4 billion lira in August, up 39% on the same month last year. Online card payments grew 41% to 923.9 billion lira and made up 30% of all card spending. Every growth rate is in nominal lira, with no adjustment for inflation.
Total card payments rose 39%, and the online channel grew a little faster
BKM's August 2026 press bulletin puts the combined value of credit, debit and prepaid card payments in August at 2,990.4 billion lira, which BKM rounds to 3.0 trillion. Against 2,146.3 billion lira in August 2025, that is a 39% increase. Transaction count reached 1,991.8 million, up 11%. Anadolu Agency reported the data on September 17, 2026 under a headline saying card payments had neared 3 trillion lira; Fintech İstanbul carried the bulletin the same day. The line that matters most to businesses is online: card payments over the internet rose 41% from 654.3 billion to 923.9 billion lira, while online transaction count rose 13% from 226.6 million to 255.8 million. The internet's share of total card payment value is 30%, exactly where it stood in August 2025. So the story is not that the online share crossed a threshold; the share held steady while the value flowing through it grew 41%. Every rate in the bulletin is nominal lira against the same month a year earlier. BKM publishes no inflation-adjusted figure, and we are not calculating one.
Card types, contactless payments and cards in circulation
By card type, credit card payments in August totalled 2,537.0 billion lira (up 40%) and debit card payments 445.9 billion lira (also up 40%), while prepaid cards fell 43% from 13.1 billion to 7.5 billion lira. In transaction count, credit cards reached 1,169.5 million (up 12%), debit cards 789.1 million (up 13%) and prepaid cards 33.2 million (down 39%). Contactless payments came to 1,335.7 million transactions worth 1,039.9 billion lira, with count up 9% and value up 42%. BKM says 81% of in-store card payments, four out of every five, are contactless, and that share is unchanged from a year ago. The internet's share of total transaction count is 13%, also unchanged. Cards in circulation reached 478.0 million (up 4%): 153.4 million credit cards, 224.5 million debit cards and 100.1 million prepaid cards. The bulletin contains no comparison with July, no sector or regional breakdown and no statement from a BKM executive; the Anadolu Agency report likewise carries no quote. For background, BKM was founded in 1990 by 13 public and private Turkish banks, the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye has been its controlling shareholder since 2020, and it operates the domestic card scheme TROY, the BKM Express wallet, the GO and 3D-Secure verification systems and TR Karekod routing.
Reading the numbers correctly: value grew fast, count grew slowly, share did not move
The first lesson is to read value and count separately. Online card payment value rose 41% while online transaction count rose 13%; the gap shows that the average amount per transaction went up in nominal terms. The same gap appears in the totals: value up 39%, count up 11%. A business that benchmarks its growth against the 40% value figure is using the wrong anchor; the 11% to 13% count growth is a closer guide to the market's transaction rhythm. The second lesson is the online share holding at 30%: the online channel is growing at roughly the same pace as in-store card payments rather than taking meaningful share from them, yet roughly a third of card spending now runs online. On September 15 we covered Trade Minister Bolat's statement that Türkiye's e-commerce volume topped 4.5 trillion lira; that figure comes from Trade Ministry e-commerce records, while BKM measures card payments across every channel from the card switch itself. The two datasets describe the same shift through different windows.
What it means for businesses in Türkiye: time to review the payment flow before Q4
The August data is a snapshot of the period before the November campaigns and year-end shopping. In Türkiye, 30 lira of every 100 paid by card goes through the internet, and that channel is growing 41% a year in value; an SMB that still sells in-store alone is standing outside a channel that carries roughly a third of its customers' card spending. For a business that already sells online, the question is no longer whether it is on the internet but how frictionless its card payment step is. The bulletin gives no payment failure or cart abandonment data, but in a market with 255.8 million online card transactions a month, every customer lost at the verification screen or in a mobile form is revenue lost directly. Contactless at 81% of in-store payments also signals a mobile expectation: customers tap to pay in the physical world and expect the same speed when they shop from their phones. Credit card spending up 40% says the credit card remains the primary instrument, while prepaid cards shrinking in both value and count suggest extra effort there is not a priority. The inflation caveat belongs in every decision: the 39% to 41% growth is nominal, so budget and target comparisons should be read alongside the 11% to 13% growth in transaction count.
The UNALSOFT view
Our reading: the numbers in this bulletin are a scale, not a target. If a business's own online sales growth is below 41% in value or 13% in count, it is falling behind the market; above that, it is taking share. In our e-commerce panel work with clients, this is the comparison we run before Q4: how many screens the payment step takes on mobile, where in the card payment flow customers drop off, and which friction can be removed before the campaign season. The BKM data says the channel is growing; whether you get a share of that growth is a question your own panel answers.
Sources
BKM August 2026 press bulletin (PDF) · Anadolu Agency report · Fintech İstanbul report
Want to review your online payment flow before Q4?
Let's look together at your store's card payment step, mobile experience and campaign-season readiness. A short conversation is enough to start.