Turkey’s central bank held borrowing costs on Thursday and flagged that it could tighten interest rates should inflation rise further as war in the Middle East drives up energy prices, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Central Bank of Turkey held its benchmark one-week repo rate at 37.0%. Investors put slightly more chance of a hike than a hold, according to LSEG data ahead of the decision. In January, the bank cut its key rate for a fifth meeting in a row to 37.0% from 38.0%.

The Trump administration has reached a tentative deal to drop criminal charges against a Turkish bank over whether it had done business with Iranian entities, saying it deserved leniency because of Turkey’s help in negotiating the release of hostages from the Hamas attack in Israel in October 2023, the New York Times reported. The proposed settlement for the state-run bank, Halkbank, would bring an end to a case in which prosecutors had charged it with illicitly transferring about $20 billion worth of otherwise restricted Iranian funds.

A draft law currently at the Turkish parliament is ‌expected to generate at least 4.2 billion ‌lira ($95.58 million) tax income from a levy on crypto ​assets, according to its impact analysis, Reuters reported. The law will generate more tax income from crypto assets but this amount cannot currently be calculated ‌exactly as it ⁠will be applied for the first time, the analysis said.

Turkey's ruling AK Party proposed on Monday adopting a tax on cryptocurrency ‌income and a transaction levy on crypto asset ‌service providers, in a draft law submitted to parliament, Reuters reported. "Platforms must apply a ​10% withholding tax on income and gains from crypto‑asset transactions on a quarterly basis," the text of the draft said. Profits from crypto asset transactions conducted outside authorized platforms would ‌be taxed through declaration ⁠in annual statements.

Major Turkish holding company Zorlu began talks with state banks to restructure its debts, according to two people familiar with the private talks, in what could be the largest Turkish corporate loan structuring since the 2018 lira crisis, Reuters reported. Zorlu Holding, which owns valuable real estate as well as loss-making appliance and electronics firm Vestel Elektronik held CEO-level talks with state banks and smaller private lenders last week to begin setting out a restructuring plan, the two sources said.

Turkey is planning to tighten access to bankruptcy protections after a surge in applications, as authorities seek to curb what they say is misuse of a key debt-restructuring tool, Bloomberg News reported. Draft proposals seen by Bloomberg would overhaul the country’s concordat system, a court-supervised process that allows financially distressed companies to postpone payments and restructure with creditors instead of entering bankruptcy.

Turkey is planning to tighten access to bankruptcy protections after a surge in applications, as authorities seek to curb what they say is misuse of a key debt-restructuring tool, Bloomberg News reported. Draft proposals seen by Bloomberg would overhaul the country’s concordat system, a court-supervised process that allows financially distressed companies to postpone payments and restructure with creditors instead of entering bankruptcy.

Turkey’s Pegasus Airlines said on Monday it has signed an agreement to acquire the biggest Czech airline, Smartwings, along with its owner, Czech Airlines, from Prague City Air, the Associated Press reported. Pegasus said that the deal, which is worth 154 million euros (almost $180 million) was a “step forward in our continued global growth journey.” The process of transferring the ownership of Czech Airlines should be completed in 12 months, Smartwings spokeswoman Vladimíra Dufková said.

Turkey’s central bank slowed the pace of rate cuts at its latest meeting, after inflation came in higher than expected in September, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Central Bank of Turkey cut its benchmark rate to 39.5% from 40.5%, it said Thursday. Money markets priced in a three-quarter-point rate cut, although with the possibility of a bigger, one-percentage-point cut, according to LSEG data. The bank previously cut rates by 2.5 percentage points and 3 percentage points in September and July, respectively.