Turkey’s Treasury Ministry fined Yapı Kredi 187.1 million lira ($31.6 million) for violating an insurance law, the private bank said on Monday, days after Akbank announced it received a similar penalty, Reuters reported.
Yapı Kredi said in a statement to the İstanbul stock exchange it was fined and was warned that its insurance brokerage activity could be suspended for up to six months.
The bank was notified by the ministry of the violation in December but did not disclose it until it was notified of the final fine amount on Friday, it said.
Akbank said on Saturday it was fined 94.7 million lira and its insurance brokerage activity was suspended for 15 days to mid-February. It said the punishment would not have any “material impact” on its financial statements.
The law the banks violated prohibits sharing false information regarding companies’ services, actions that can harm clients, delaying compensation payments among some other details.
Both banks are using a 25 percent advance discount to pay the fines.
Separately, Turkey’s Competition Board said last week it was conducting “preliminary research” into banks, and sources said officials visited banks to analyze computers as part of a probe of trading in the financial sector.