Ministry slaps lenders with hefty fines over fees charged
ISTANBUL
The Trade Ministry has imposed hefty fines on the lenders it inspected in 2024, following customer complaints about the fees and commissions collected by banks.
After its audits, the ministry slapped 3.2 billion Turkish Liras of fines on banks.
Instead of contesting the fine, 22 financial institutions applied to the ministry for a settlement. As a result of the settlement, 1.6 billion liras entered the state's coffers last month from the banks whose appeals were accepted.
The ministry acted on the banking industry in 2024, for the first time in 10 years, after consumers filed 100,000 complaints against lenders.
Inspectors from the ministry identified fees unfairly collected from consumers beyond the 19 permissible transaction categories. They issued separate fines for each individual transaction.
For some banks, the amount of fines to be imposed reached up to 5 billion to 6 billion liras. However, due to the legal limit that fines for a single bank in 2024 cannot exceed 423 million liras, the ministry capped the fine amount at this upper limit. Therefore, 5-6 banks were imposed fines at the maximum amount of 423 million liras each last year.
The banks’ settlement requests were accepted on the condition that they refund the unjust amounts charged from customers and correct those faulty processes.
The fines for these banks were reduced by 50 percent, resulting in 1.6 billion liras entering the state’s coffers in January. The banks will also need to refund their customers an amount greater than the fines they were issued for erroneous transactions and excessive commissions.
