The main factors affecting credit card use in Albania-the case of Tirana

Abstract

Considering the importance of debt in the economy, this study aims to find out the main factors that indicate the changes in credit card usage in Albania. Moreover, the research is focused on answering the questions regarding the attitude of cardholders and non-cardholders in particular after Covid-19 pandemic. Firstly, specific data have been taken from the Bank of Albania and the information was used to release the position of credit cards in Albania in recent years, by illustrating the total number of credit card payments and the number of issued and active credit cards in years. After that, a survey was conducted through an online questionnaire and personal interviews in order to have a clear picture of the current use of credit cards in Tirana. Data collected and analyzed points out that the majority of citizens have knowledge about credit cards. It is indicated that education and level of income are the main factors that affect credit card usage. The pandemic situation affected also the behavior of customers, making them buy more often with credit cards. The data show that the biggest advantage regarding credit cards is that they are a very practical payment method. However, financial institutions should create other eligibility criteria that could be met by a wider proportion of the population and also they should be more informative. As this research paper is related only to people who live in Tirana, further study is needed to cover other regions of Albania as well.