The central bank of Turkey has taken new measures to deter bank depositors from converting their savings into foreign currency and to ease pressure on the Turkish lira after the end of an aggressive cycle of interest rate hikes. Over the past 12 months, the dollar's exchange rate against the Turkish lira has increased by more than 60%. One of the measures introduced is to increase the cost of storing deposits in foreign currency for commercial banks. At the same time, the regulator lowered the mandatory reserve requirements for accounts in Turkish lira related to foreign currency. These accounts are part of a savings program developed by the Government to support the exchange rate of the national currency. Specific measures include reducing the reserve requirements for bank deposits with currency protection for up to six months from 30% to 25%. The coefficient of additional reserve requirements for foreign currency deposits and participation funds opened in Turkish lira has also been increased from 4% to 8%. The Central Bank of Turkey hopes that these measures will stimulate the transfer of funds from the population to deposits in Turkish lira and continue the process of quantitative tightening. Economists expect that these measures will partially offset each other, and their overall effect will lead to the withdrawal of some excess liquidity from the financial system.
