The New Turkish Lira

The hyperinflation that started in 1970’s has been affecting Turkish economic life and has caused the expression of economic values by billions, trillions or even in quadrillions. From 1981 new banknotes in larger denominations started to be circulated due to this high inflation to meet the cash demand in the economy. For the last few years the highest denominated banknote is 20.000.000 TL, which is also the highest denominated banknote in the world. Use of figures with multiple zeros has created many technical and operational problems for almost every institution such as banks, treasury, official financial records and it also caused difficulties for citizens. The hyperinflation slowed down in the last few years. Meeting lower inflation rates, the Government decided to change the currency as a part of the economical (reform) program. According to the "Law on the Currency Unit of the Republic of Turkey, No: 5308" ("Law")¹ to be put into effect by 1 January 2005, the new currency unit