Complaints to Turkey's banking watchdog increase by 33 pct in 2019
Turkey's top banking authority received 33 percent more complaints in 2019, compared to the previous year. While majority of grievances were about personal loans, the second biggest topic of issues were debit and credit cards.
Duvar English
Complaints to Turkey's Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) spiked by 33 percent in 2019 with the agency receiving 134,631 grievances over the year, daily Hürriyet reported on July 1.
The most common topic of grievances were personal loans, while the increase in grievances was the greatest about credit cards and commercial loans.
One fourth of grievances, 25.3 percent, were about personal loans, 22.74 percent about debit and credit cards, 14.28 percent about deposits and 11.09 about commercial loans and products.
Some 12.74 percent of grievances were determined to be the jurisdiction of other institutions.
Most complaints about personal loans were about prepayments and restructuring payments, and the biggest issue with debit and credit cards were about commissions and fees.
5.4 million fined
The BDDK also revealed that they wrote 384 reports and 11 opinions in 2019, and established 160 board rulings in light of their inspections.
An overwhelming majority of 155 board rulings were administrative sanctions and fines, while seven included legal repercussions.
The agency fined banks a total of 5,425,000 Turkish Liras in 2019, across 176 administrative fines.