Turkish equities fall on new banking rules

ISTANBUL - Reuters

The main Istanbul share index was down 1.74 percent at 73,982, underperforming the broader emerging markets index, which was down 1.17 percent. DHA photo

Turkish equities were dragged down by new banking regulation yesterday while fixed income markets looked ahead to today’s Central Bank meeting in which the bank was seen sticking with its tight monetary policy.

The main Istanbul share index was down 1.74 percent at 73,982, underperforming the broader emerging markets index , which was down 1.17 percent. Five of the morning’s worst performers on the Istanbul Stock Exchange were banks, which represent 41 percent of the total market capitalisation.

The Turkish banking watchdog published draft measures on Aug. 16 to discourage the excessive use of retail credit cards and to promote commercial loans.

“Recent regulations came right after the government’s announcements that credit cards should be used less and SME loan rates should be lower,” Cihan Saraoğlu from Ekspres Invest said. “ We are expecting further regulation on fees, which may come pretty soon,” he added.

Investor attention was also focused on a central bank meeting today. “Market consensus is for no change but the recent sell-off increases the chances of a measured hike to the upper bound of the interest rate corridor,” Erkin Işık from TEB said. The Turkish central bank injected 2.5 billion lira ($1.29 billion) into the market in a one-week repo auction yesterday at a fixed simple rate of 4.5 percent.