New Limits on Turkish Bank Fees and Commissions

Recent Developments

The Communiqué No. 2020/4 on the Procedures and Principles Regarding Fees That Banks Can Charge to Corporate Clients ( “Communiqué” ) was published on the Official Gazette No. 31035 dated February 10, 2020 and will enter into force on March 1, 2020. The Communiqué regulates the upper limits of fees to be charged by Turkish banks for services to be provided to corporate clients (excluding banks and financial leasing, factoring and finance companies), along with several additional liabilities.

What’s New?

General

The fees that Turkish banks can charge their corporate clients in respect of “Commercial Loans”, “Foreign Trade”, “Cash Management” and “Payment Systems” will be limited to 51 items listed in Annex-I of the Communiqué. The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey will be authorized to determine the limits for these fees.

Loans

• The commitment fee will not exceed 0.25% of the committed loan limit, and the utilization/drawdown/arrangement fee will not exceed 1% of the loan granted.
• Banks will be obligated to accept corporate clients’ prepayment requests in case they propose prepay the entire loan. In this case, the prepayment fee will not exceed (i) for loans with a remaining maturity of 24 months or less, 1%, and (ii) for loans with a remaining maturity more than 24 months, 2% of the prepaid amount, calculated by making the necessary interest discount. On the other hand, the banks will not be obliged to accept partial prepayments; however, if they do so, when determining the prepayment fee, they will be obliged to discount all interest and other cost elements that will not accrue due to the prepayment.

Other Services and Products

• No fees will be charged within the scope of opening, operating and custody services of deposit and participation fund accounts of commercial customers.
• Fees for electronic fund transfers will not exceed the following limits:
• If the transaction value is equal or less than TRY 1,000: TRY 1 for regular payments made through mobile banking applications and internet banking transactions; TRY 2 for payments made through ATMs; and TRY 5 for payments made through other channels.
• If the transaction value is between TRY 1,000 and TRY 50,000: TRY 2 for regular payments made through mobile banking applications and internet banking transactions; TRY 5 for transactions made through ATMs; and TRY 10 for transactions made through other channels.
• If the transaction value is over TRY 50,000: TRY 25 for regular payments made through mobile banking applications and internet banking transactions; TRY 50 for transactions made through ATMs; and TRY 100 for transactions made through other channels.
• No limit excess fee can be charged on corporate credit cards.

Conclusion

The Communiqué’s goal is to standardize the banking fees for corporate transactions. The Communiqué will apply irrespective of the governing law of the loan/facility agreements to the extent any of the creditors is a Turkish bank. Furthermore, the prepayments to occur after the effective date of the Communiqué will be affected by the restrictions of the Communiqué even if the concerned loan facilities were made available prior to such date.