401 billion TL in 16 days: October promise on the table in fund crisis

A date range sits on the desk of Istanbul's Chief Prosecutor: September 1-16. Sixteen days. Two funds. 401 billion 266 million 791 thousand 742 TL. The number becomes less abstract when written this long; 335.9 billion TL alone was withdrawn from Tera fund, the rest from Pusula. 440 investors under scrutiny — all through the same window, before the precautionary measure was announced.

I chose to focus on this today because three separate desks spoke for the first time on the same day: the prosecutor released figures, the President provided a timeline, the Vice President drew a line. When placed side by side, the new shape of the crisis emerges.

Erdoğan unveiled a concrete timeline after the 73rd Cabinet Meeting, which lasted approximately 3 hours 20 minutes: principal repayment up to 1 million lira begins in October. "Whoever crosses the legitimate boundaries of the law, we will hold accountable," he said and stated that capital markets would be strengthened with additional regulations. The 1 million TL threshold may not mean full compensation for a middle-income person who invested their entire savings in these instruments — for some it means a ceiling, for others it means a cut.

Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz drew the line clearly: public resources will not be used to cover this loss; the issue will be resolved through legal proceedings. It was announced that precautionary measures have been issued against 7 companies and 131 funds to date, these funds have been quarantined, and approximately 44 thousand victims have received compensation. Yılmaz also stated the compensation criteria: what matters is the principal invested; a victim who made profit above their principal is not counted as a victim, nor is one who recovered their net investment. It was noted that four meetings have been held on the fund file to date, with 15 inspectors and auditors conducting a comprehensive review alongside the State Audit Board.

When these three statements are placed side by side, the following emerges: the state is not paying the loss out of pocket; it is working on the logic of retrieving the cost from those who made high profits and exited in time, then distributing it to victims. The 440 investors in the September 1-16 window are important precisely for this reason — if it is proven that they exited based on leaked information before the precautionary measure, they will be the first concrete subjects of Erdoğan's "unjust gain" statement. For a retiree in Istanbul, the difference is this: they were told they would see the portion of their money up to 1 million TL in October, and for the rest what they must wait for is now the speed of the prosecutor's file.

The timeline is tight. Yılmaz announced on Wednesday that the parliamentary commission will discuss the fund law — meaning today. If the law passes on the merits this week, the 1 million TL threshold will cease to be an administrative promise and take legal form; if not, the October payment remains as a legal backing that is incomplete.

What twenty years have reminded us of is one thing: threshold promises are easily established in times of crisis, but narrow in implementation. The Capital Markets Board's similar threshold applications in previous crisis periods had remained controversial — the definition of who would be counted as a "victim" was interpreted narrowly each time. The "principal is what matters, those who made profit don't count" framework that Yılmaz drew today is precisely the harbinger of that narrow interpretation; a significant portion of 413 thousand investors may find themselves outside the "victim" list as they pass through this filter.

Let us return to the date range at the opening. September 1-16. These sixteen days are now not only the starting point of a prosecutor's file, but also of a payment timeline: the line that determines who exited in that window, who remained, and who gets what. The figure remains the same — 401 billion 266 million 791 thousand 742 TL — but from today onward it looks in two different directions: one toward the recall desk, the other toward the payment desk.

No referee has yet ruled on yesterday's promise; the EIA report will be released tomorrow evening, I will write the outcome on Monday.

**REGIONAL NOTES**

**Middle East** — King Khalid Airport in Riyadh halted flights yesterday; Trump accused the Houthis of "misbehavior." According to two diplomatic sources who leaked to Haaretz, Netanyahu proposed participation in Houthi operations in Yemen as a key to normalization with Saudi Arabia; Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman rejected the offer due to public opinion. Gulf aviation security and Israel normalization are on the same table.

**Eurasia** — Between October 8-11, three Yandex data centers in Russia — Sasovo, Kaluga, Vladimir — were struck by unmanned aerial vehicles. Two artificial intelligence supercomputers in Sasovo came to a complete halt. Taxi and delivery services were disrupted in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. The incident exposed Central Asia's digital economy's dependence on infrastructure outside the region; repair timeline is not yet available.

**Europe** — At least 300 Intermarché and Netto stores, over 100 Coopérative U stores, 80 Carrefour and some Monoprix and E.Leclerc stores in France had their connected cooling systems hacked by cyberattack; refrigerator temperatures were raised to 50 degrees overnight, fires broke out in some stores. Damage to two stores in Alsace is 270 thousand euros. Prime Minister Lecornu assigned ANSSI to the task, and the Paris prosecutor opened an investigation.

**LEDGER — DOLLAR/TL**

Dollar/TL today at 49.38, up 0.09 percent from yesterday's 49.36; over the last five days the band has been tight between 49.26-49.38. On the day the fund crisis payment timeline was announced, the exchange rate was nearly flat — the market for now believes the promise that public funds will not be used.

**PROMISE FOR TOMORROW (15.10.2026)**

On Thursday, October 15, the Funds Law bill to be discussed in the relevant commission of the Grand National Assembly may be passed on the merits and referred to the General Assembly; if not referred, the 1 million TL threshold will remain only as an administrative payment in October, the legal framework will be pushed to November.