Turkey Amends Requirements For Central Bank Reserves

Turkey's Central Bank has amended secondary legislation on the principles and procedures for reserves which it is required to hold. It introduced a new opportunity bracket and parameter for Turkish Lira obligations, allowing up to 5% of required reserves to be deposited as gold in frozen accounts, subject to certain requirements.

The Central Bank published the Communiqué number 2016/5 on Amendment of the Communiqué on Required Reserves with number 2013/15 ("Communiqué") in Official Gazette number 29865 on 22 October 2016, effective from 21 October 2016.

Notable provisions introduced by the Communiqué include:

• Maximum 5% of the required reserves to be kept for Turkish Lira obligations may be put in frozen accounts as standard gold, manufactured in total from in-country production or scrap gold over the amount, calculated by multiplying 0-5% of the opportunity bracket by the parameter of 1.0.