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4.11.6. Consumer Protection Architecture
Consumer Protection and Financial Literacy
In responding to the harmonization requirements of the EU accession process, and also in
taking account the new Turkish Law of Obligations and Turkish Trade Law, a new Consumer
Protection Act (No. 6502) was issued on 28/11/2013, which became effective from
28/05/2014.
The new Consumer Protection Act has implications, among others, for Consumer Credit
Agreements and Credit Cards and Long-distance Finance Transactions in the sense of
distribution of financial service by means of distance communications. Financial services
include banking transactions, loans, insurances, private pension plans, money investments or
payment services (BRSA, 2014 November; Lachman et al., 2014). These amendments also have
implications for Islamic banks at least in terms of consumer loans and financial leasing.
‘Financial Access, Financial Education, Financial Consumer Protection Strategy and Action
Plans’, which was prepared by Financial Stability Committee, was issued as Prime Ministry
Circular No. 2014/10 on 05/06/2014. The primary objective of the Strategy are to extend
financial products and services to all segments of the society, include outsiders of the financial
system and increase the quality and use of existing products and services by increasing
knowledge and awareness. Furthermore, the Strategy aims to ensure that efficient measures
are taken by the regulatory bodies for the protection of financial consumers. It contains two
action plans for financial education and financial consumer protection with fifty-five concrete
actions in total covering 2014-2017. The ‘Financial Education Action Plan’ will be monitored
and coordinated by the CMB, and the ‘Financial Consumer Protection Action Plan’ will be
monitored and coordinated by the BRSA. The Undersecretariat of Treasury will be responsible
for overall coordination of the strategy and monitoring the implementation.
In realising the action plans, the action plan is proactively implemented by responsible and
coordinator agencies. As part of such actions, mandatory personal finance lessons for students
are introduced in pilot areas with the objective of increasing financial literacy, and educational
programmes and research has been conducted by CMB. It has recently been announced by the
government that CMB will host an interactive website to contribute to financial education and
financial literacy (Akyil, 2016, May 8). Islamic banking and finance is also included in such
strategies and action plans.
Private sector initiatives have also been taken by various stakeholders, such as ‘3Kumbara
(PennyBank)’, whose “Literacy Education Program incorporates activity-based methods that
support the development of active learning, based on social constructivism” (3Kumbara, n.d.).
Deposit Insurance
The Turkish banking system has always had deposit insurance since early 1930s. SDIF
(Savings Deposit Insurance Fund) was established in 1983 (with the Decree of Law on Banks
No. 70) with the objective of insuring the savings deposits in the banks. The duty of
administration and representation of the SDIF were transferred to the Banking Regulation and
Supervision Agency by the Law No. 4389 in 1999. After a number of administrative and legal
changes, with the amended acts, SDIF gained an autonomous status by the Law No.5020 in