Globalization of Credit Card Usage: The Case of a Developing Economy

Investigates the attitudes of Turkish consumers towards credit cards, and the approach of card issuers, by surveying two samples of 200 card‐holders and non‐holders: the better educated, middle‐aged members of the upper‐middle class seem to be the prime target; the most important reasons for using a credit card were “ease of payment” followed by “risk of carrying cash”; non‐holders do not carry credit cards because they do not know much about it; informal sources of information appear to be more influential than mass media advertising in penetrating the market; proposes that the usage and the administration of credit cards are influenced very much by the infrastructure of the country and, hence, credit card companies have to modify their marketing and administrative procedures rather than following a standardized approach.