Turkish Twitter user: Erdogan to target CHP-linked bank
Fuat Avni, the handle of an anonymous Twitter user who has successfully revealed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s moves in the past, just issued another explosive prediction.
Then they came for Is Bankasi. If we are to believe Turkey’s “Deep Throat,” Fuat Avni (the handle of an anonymous Twitter user), the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) plans to take over Is Bankasi, the country’s largest bank, for alleged embezzlement.
More explosive is Avni’s claim on Twitter that the main opposition group, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), will be taken to the Constitutional Court and shut down for its purported role in the embezzlement.
For many Al-Monitor readers, this may not seem like news. Last month, Turkey’s regulatory agency, the Savings and Deposit Insurance Fund, took over Bank Asya for its affiliation with the Fethullah Gulen network. On Feb. 9, Al-Monitor columnist Mustafa Akyol wrote how, despite experts’ dire warnings that lowering interest rates could spin inflation out of control, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the AKP government keep forcing the Central Bank of Turkey to lower interest rates. The government’s meddlesome approach to banks and the economy in Turkey, in other words, appears like the story of yesteryear.
But Is Bankasi is not just any bank. It is one of the oldest financial institutions in Turkey, and perhaps its most prestigious. Founded in 1924 on orders from President Mustafa Kemal Ataturk — Celal Bayar, the bank’s first general manager, would himself become president in 1950 — Is Bankasi boasts a proud history filled with dynamism and innovation. It was the first bank in Turkey to introduce ATMs in the late 1980s and Internet banking in the 1990s. Is Bankasi’s trademarked term for an ATM, “Bankamatik,” has been so catchy that many Turks still call all ATMs “bankamatik.” Beyond banking, Is Bankasi subsidiaries compete in such sectors as glass-making, insurance and telecommunications.
