TURKEY TR
Country Report
Institutions Connected to SWIFT and the Message Traffic
Turkish banks have become members of SWIFT network in 1989 and, in the same year 32 banks have been connected to the system. This number has been changed by time and it was reached to a total of 57 at the end of year 2003. Figure 1 shows the progress in the number of banks connected to SWIFT network, from 1989 to 2003.
Figure 1 Total Number of Institutions Connected to the Swift and Message Traffic
Turkey / 1989 / 1993 / 1996 / 1997 / 1998 / 1999 / 2000 / 2001 / 2002 / 2003Member Banks / 32 / 44 / 49 / 54 / 55 / 42 / 46 / 39 / 30 / 32
Total / - / 51 / 59 / 69 / 73 / 78 / 80 / 69 / 60 / 57
Message Traffic(‘000) / - / 1641 / 2829 / 3655 / 4303 / 4620 / 5355 / 5283 / 5414 / 5796
The ownership structure of SWIFT Users in Turkey, as of December 2003
32 Members
10 Non-sharing members
15 Sub-members
57 Total
Message Traffic
The SWIFT message traffic is still growing although the number of users is slightly decreasing. The total message traffic of Turkey increased from 1,640,858 in 1993 to 5,796,460 in 2003.
SWIFT - Turkish User Group
In the year 2001, the Banks Association of Turkey has been selected as the Turkish User Group Chairperson and tried to follow a new strategy to get the Turkish SWIFT community together by making regular User Group meetings in which the SWIFT users can discuss and share various problems, issues and experiences.
All activities are now coordinated within the Association and there are two sub-committees under the SWIFT-Turkish User Group, Technical Committee (10 banks) and Operations Committee (12 banks).
Meetings
The User Group meetings are held, at least, twice a year (if necessary 3 times). The two sub-committees meet four or more times a year depending on the needs of the Group and the current issues.
Sincetwo years, the User Group is communicating exclusively by e-mail, also. There is an e-mail group, which is moderated by the Banks Association of Turkey and the users are sharing their problems and information by e-mail within the Group There is also a section which is allocated to the meeting notes and presentations submitted during the meetings in the web site of the Association ( The list of the banks, which are the members of the Technical and Operations Committee, are also present in the web site.
Migration to SWIFTNet FIN
Turkey is scheduled for the migration in March 2004 and Turkish migration window is active between 1 March – 25 March 2004. In order to avoid unnecessary costs, all the users are trying to be ready to use SWIFTNet FIN network starting from March 25, 2004. A Swift-Turkish User Group meeting was held in Istanbul on 20 February 2004 and all three network providers were present in the meeting. The SWIFTNet migration was the main subject of the meeting and each of the network providers gave a brief presentation for their current preparation status of their customers. The e-ordering process was successful. Almost all banks have ordered the equipment for SWIFTNet on time. Finally, most of the VPN boxes have been established and tested. As of March 15, 2004, 9 users have already been migrated to IP.
ESA
SWIFT-Turkish User Group has decided to join European SWIFT Alliance (ESA), and the formal agreement was signed on July 24, 2003. In the User Group meeting on September 30, 2003, ESA representatives were with us and they introduced the ESA to the group, its working procedures and objectives, its functions etc., and also current issues were discussed during the meeting.
TIC-RTGS and TIC-ESTS
Turkish Interbank Clearing and Electronic Funds Transfer System (TIC-RTGS) is a domestic real-time gross settlement system that transfers and settles in Turkish Liras. The national RTGS system is designed and customized for Turkish market needs. It has started in April 1992 and is used for both wholesale and retail payments.
Turkish Interbank Clearing–Electronic Security Transfer and Settlement System (TIC-ESTS) works in an integrated manner with the TIC-RTGS to electronically transfer and settle Turkish government securities with “delivery versus payment” (DVP) principle.
The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBT) is both the regulator and the operator of TIC-RTGS/ESTS.
At the beginning of 2003, a project called “Direct Debit” has started.Procedures were prepared for the project. We are in the test period now. After completion of the test period, we are planning to run direct debit transactions in June 2004.
National Market Practice Group
The aim of the group is to develop standards about the securities market applications. Reports about “Turkish Market Practice Templates for Settlement” and “Corporate Actions” were prepared and submitted to Securities Market Practice Group (SMPG). The first report was published in the web site of Swift and the second was, in the SMPG web site.
IBAN
A working group is working on IBAN. Draft version of IBAN for Turkey is ready, and the group is working for the last improvements. It is planned to submit the final version and implementation plan in July 2004.
Redenomination of Turkish Lira (TRL)
Since one US Dollar equals to 1.300.000 Turkish Liras, and SWIFT permits a maximum of 14 digit figures in SWIFT messages, sometimes we are faced with technical problems if we try to send a message exceeding 99 trillion TL. Most of the banks carry out such kind of transactions by sending two separate messages.
The Central Bank of Turkey will decided to redenominate TL by dropping 6 zeros from TL at the end of this year, 2004. “Yeni Türk Lirası(YTL-New Turkish Lira)” and sub-unit of YTL, “Yeni Kuruş” (YKr-new kuruş) will be used starting from January 1st, 2005. One YTL will be equal to 100 YKr. Both currencies, YTL and TL, will be in circulation during 2005.
When converting TL values to YTL, the conversion rate is 1,000,000 TL = 1 YTL.
Swift was informed about the redenomination process. Central Bank of Turkey has applied to ISO for new code for YTL. After the code was received, the interested parties including Swift, will be informed.
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March 2004