Turkish Cypriots’ credit card debt doubled within the space of a year between June 2023 and June this year, according to figures released by the north’s central bank on Tuesday.

The statistics, which were first reported in newspaper Yeni Duzen, showed that by the end of June, Turkish Cypriots’ combined credit card debt had reached more than five billion TL – a total of €134,637,301.

Just a year earlier, the statistics showed, Turkish Cypriots’ combined credit card debt sat at 2.5bn TL. It had then risen to just shy of four billion TL by the end of March, before an extra billion (€26.6m) was added to the figure in the following three months.

While the exact number of people living in the north is not known, the number of people registered to vote at the last election, which took place in June 2023, was 210,121 – the likely number of people living in the north who are over the age of 18 years old.

Thus, the amount of credit card debt in the north averages out at just under €641 per adult resident.

Equivalent statistics are not available in the Republic, though the United States’ total credit card debt was $1.142 trillion (€1tn) at the end of June, up from $1.031tn (€934bn) a year prior.

This works out at $3,699 (€3,394) per adult living in the US.