Keeping the Turkish economy afloat is becoming increasingly difficult. To stop the downturn and stimulate a return to growth, Ankara has pushed the central bank to make a massive rate cut despite the still-unripe domestic and external conditions and sought to control hard-currency prices via public banks. As a result, the central bank and the treasury, used as the main conduits of those coercive policies, have suffered major losses of credibility and funds.
As part of the same approach, public banks were prodded to cheapen loans in early August, mainly in a bid to help destocking in the crisis-hit construction sector. Yet private banks, many of them of foreign ownership, were largely reluctant to follow suit, concerned over profitability and excessive risks. The government responded with measures that effectively reward banks that lend more, namely the three state-owned banks Ziraat, Halk and Vakif, while penalizing those reluctant on loan expansion.
