Turkey extended by a year a scheme it adopted in the throes of a 2021 currency crisis that protects lira deposits from depreciation against hard currencies, Reuters reported.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government introduced the state-backed scheme (KKM) in December 2021 to stem a historic lira collapse triggered by interest rate cuts that Erdoğan had sought. The lira has still lost 29 percent against the dollar this year but has held mostly stable since August.
A presidential decree published in Saturday’s official gazette extended the deadline for opening new KKM accounts to Dec. 31, 2023.
Turkish budget payments into KKM stood at 9.3 billion lira ($500 million) in September.