Turkey's bank regulator chief Kavcıoğlu quits as fund probe jails three of his top officials

Şahap Kavcıoğlu, the head of Turkey's Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK), announced on Wednesday that he had asked President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to relieve him of his post. He wrote that he was stepping aside "so that our institution is not worn down further" after "recent allegations" about the agency and about him. The move came days after a court jailed three of his senior officials, including his deputy, in the investigation into Turkey's collapsed investment funds.

Kavcıoğlu has not been charged with any crime, and prosecutors have not said in public whether he is a suspect. In an interview published the same morning, he said the BDDK had "nothing whatsoever" to do with the fund scheme. He also said neither he nor his family had money in funds or on the stock market. The parliamentary group chair of the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) said he would make a detailed statement on Thursday. Opposition lawmakers said the resignation showed that the whole economic bureaucracy had failed. An AKP politician who had publicly pressed Kavcıoğlu for answers called it "the start of a process of accountability."

The departure puts the fund investigation at the top of Turkey's banking supervision. It is the latest change at a financial regulator since the crisis began. Earlier, the management of the Capital Markets Board, Borsa İstanbul and the clearing house Takasbank had changed.

Quotations from Turkish-language sources in this article are 567politics translations. All times are Istanbul time (UTC+3) unless noted.

What Kavcıoğlu said#

Kavcıoğlu posted his statement on his personal X account at 10:51 a.m. on November 11. The full text reads: "Following the recent allegations concerning the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency and my person: I have asked our esteemed President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to relieve me of my duty so that our institution is not worn down further. I offer my deepest gratitude to our esteemed President, who entrusted these duties to us. Respectfully announced to the public."

View this post on X

The Turkish phrase he used, "affımı istedim," is a formal way of asking to be released from a post. It does not mean asking for a pardon. Under Turkey's Banking Law No. 5411, the president appoints the chair and members of the agency's board (Article 84). When the chair is absent, the board's second chair stands in (Article 83). A vacancy must be filled within one month (Article 85). By the time of publication, no presidential decision accepting the resignation or naming a successor had been published.

The night before, Kavcıoğlu spoke on the record to İsmail Saymaz, a columnist at the opposition-leaning daily Sözcü. The interview ran on Wednesday morning, shortly before he resigned. Asked directly whether he was a suspect, he answered: "The BDDK is one of Turkey's most distinguished institutions. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the fund business. Every bank has a portfolio company. Accusing us because İktisat Katılım has a portfolio company is not ethical. You can criticize the bank license, but linking it to the funds is something else." He added: "Neither I, nor my family, nor anyone I am connected to has money in funds or on the stock exchange. Not now, and not for 20 or 30 years."

Saymaz later said on Sözcü TV that Kavcıoğlu had asked to be named this time. In earlier talks, Kavcıoğlu had given information only on condition that his name not be used, Saymaz said. "Evidently he wanted it on the record," Saymaz said, adding: "I think his departure was already decided." He said a small chance remained that the interview itself had prompted the resignation. That is the journalist's reading. Kavcıoğlu has not explained the timing beyond his statement.

Three of his senior officials are already in jail#

The resignation follows a run of jailings inside the agency. According to BBC News Türkçe, three BDDK officials are in pretrial detention in the fund investigation. They are deputy chair Muhammet Erişen, Bilal Soysal, head of the agency's Third Department, and Mustafa Alper Taş, head of its Fourth Department.

Taş was jailed on the night of November 6 to 7, together with two former Capital Markets Board officials and a Tera Holding manager, DW Türkçe reported. Soysal followed on November 8, according to DW, which said a detention order had also been issued for Erişen. A jailing order in Turkey is a pretrial measure, not a conviction, and none of the three has been tried.

The wider investigation keeps growing. Justice Minister Akın Gürlek told parliament's budget committee on November 9 that there were 464 suspects and that 120 were jailed pending trial, as 567politics reported from that hearing. On November 3, the figure was 112 jailed out of 433 suspects. Since Gürlek's update, a court has jailed three more people, including former Takasbank general manager Yunus Arıncı. BBC News Türkçe counted 123 people in jail after those orders on November 11.

110

115

120

125

Nov. 3112

Nov. 9120

Nov. 11123

Nov. 3Nov. 9Nov. 11

Source: Turkish Ministry of Justice, Nov. 3, TBMM budget committee transcript, Nov. 9, BBC News Türkçe, Nov. 11

Show the numbers

Date	Jailed pending trial
Nov. 3	112
Nov. 9	120
Nov. 11	123

The count has risen by 11 in eight days. It mixes official and press figures, so the last point should be read as an estimate until the ministry gives a new number.

The allegations he was answering#

Most of the public pressure on Kavcıoğlu came from inside the governing camp. Savcı Sayan, a former AKP mayor of Ağrı, began posting questions to him on X on October 30. According to Euronews Türkçe, Sayan raised a claim that Kavcıoğlu had asked businessman Emre Tezmen for 20 billion lira. In return, the claim went, Takasbank would extend 35 billion lira in credit to rescue Pusula Holding and the savings-finance company Katılımevim. Sayan also asked whether relatives of Kavcıoğlu held shares in the companies involved. These are allegations. No prosecutor or court has made any such finding.

On November 1, Sayan posted a longer list. It asked how İktisat Katılım Bankası was allowed to be founded and what became of its capital. It asked about "billions of lira" said to have moved into Pusula's closed funds, and about links between Katılımevim, Birevim and a Pusula equity fund. He also asked about any business ties with Ali Emre Ballı, the Adil Yatırım chairman whose death after the fund crisis broke has been reported as a suicide. He wrote: "Please do not drag the BDDK into this debate. Institutions are permanent; officeholders are temporary."

The BDDK rejected the claims on October 30. In a statement on its website, the agency called the allegations against it and its chair "entirely unfounded." It said they had "no legal or factual basis." It said its role in the matter was limited by law. It called the posts "disinformation" and said it would take legal action against those responsible. Kavcıoğlu told Saymaz he had filed a criminal complaint against Sayan.

A second claim came from a former official. Ramazan Başak, a former deputy head of the Financial Crimes Investigation Board (MASAK), said on November 7 that he had passed allegations about some BDDK staff to Kavcıoğlu about 18 months earlier, Euronews reported. Başak said the complaints included requests to financial firms for season tickets and private boxes at football matches. He said the manager he had warned about, a department head who was later jailed, kept his post until about two months ago. Kavcıoğlu did not address Başak's claim in the interview.

Kavcıoğlu's account of the bank license and the meetings#

In the Sözcü interview, Kavcıoğlu gave his version of the decisions that critics have questioned. He said licensing a bank has three stages: permission to found it, an operating permit, and approval to actually start. He said the agency stopped İktisat Katılım Bankası from starting business on August 3, after investors began pulling money out of the group's funds. "We did not give it permission to operate," he said.

That account partly matches what the agency told parliament in October. In an October 16 briefing to the Plan and Budget Committee, the BDDK said İktisat Katılım's founding approval came in December 2024 and its operating permit in February 2026. It said that, because of "later developments," the bank was not allowed to begin business. The briefing said owning a portfolio company is no bar to a bank license, since "many banks" have one. It added that İktisat Katılım was not being liquidated because Emlak Katılım, a state-owned participation bank, was taking it over.

On September 30, the agency's board used Article 18 of the Banking Law against the owners of three investment banks: Destek, Hedef and Tera. It handed their shareholder rights, except dividends, to the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF), according to the board's announcement. That covered Emre Tezmen's 95% stake in Tera Yatırım Bankası. In the Destek case, it covered a factoring company controlled by the bank's main shareholder. The board also ordered the sale of stakes in two factoring firms within six months.

Kavcıoğlu said he had met Tezmen and Pusula's owner, Serdar Turhan, "three, at most four" times in three and a half years. He said he had no meetings with Tera before September 9. He said the meetings that followed were about how to protect Katılımevim's roughly 500,000 customers as Pusula ran into trouble. On the alleged 20-billion-lira demand, he said: "Who would pay a 20 billion bribe for a 35 billion loan? Use your head!" He confirmed meeting Ballı the day before his death, and said Ballı told him bond payments were in hand.

None of these accounts has been tested in court. Prosecutors have not published the evidence in the BDDK officials' files.

How the parties responded#

The AKP did not take a position on Wednesday. Abdullah Güler, who chairs the party's group in parliament, was asked about the resignation after a meeting with Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş. He replied: "Tomorrow I will submit a bill, and I will make a detailed statement there." He did not say what the bill would contain.

Savcı Sayan wrote on X that this "is not a resignation, it is a removal from office." He called it "the start of a process of accountability." He thanked Erdoğan for what he called his determination and said "the president does not forgive" those who abuse public office. His posts frame the case as the president cleaning up his own administration. Sayan speaks for himself, not for the party.

The opposition YENİ Parti, led by Özgür Özel, framed it as a failure of the system. Murat Emir, a deputy group chair, accused officials of showing no sense of responsibility. He said this happened "while a multibillion-dollar scheme was being run through the financial system they were obliged to protect." He said they step aside only when they lose their seats in "faction fights." He called this the "AKP-style presidential system," Cumhuriyet reported. Ümit Özlale, a YENİ Parti deputy from İzmir, is an economist. He wrote: "You may ask the president to relieve you, but this country will not forgive you for what you did at the central bank and the BDDK." Emir's "faction fights" comment is his interpretation. No evidence has been published about why the resignation came now.

Earlier coverage of the opposition's demands is in our reports on the jailing of the former Borsa İstanbul chief and on the fight over lawmakers' immunity.

A test for an agency the law calls independent#

The Banking Law describes the BDDK as an agency with administrative and financial autonomy. Article 82 says no body or person "may give orders or instructions to influence the agency's decisions." Since a 2018 decree, the president has appointed its chair and board directly. The same law sets narrow grounds for removing a board member before the term ends, such as a final conviction for certain crimes. A voluntary departure does not need any of those grounds.

Two rules will follow Kavcıoğlu out of office. Article 86 bars former chairs and members from working for private firms in the banking sector for two years after they leave. It also keeps them bound by the asset-declaration and anti-bribery law, No. 3628.

Critics and supporters read the same facts differently. Supporters of the government point to an investigation that has jailed senior officials at the market regulator, the stock exchange, the clearing house and now the banking regulator. To them, this shows no one is shielded. Opposition parties argue that the same pattern shows the regulators failed to see warnings for years, and that the people who appointed them bear responsibility too. Both readings rest on the same record. Prosecutors' files, once public, would show which of the officials' decisions are under criminal suspicion.

Who Kavcıoğlu is#

Kavcıoğlu, born in Bayburt in 1967, was a banker at Esbank and the state-owned Halkbank, DW Türkçe reported. He was elected to parliament for the AKP from Bayburt in November 2015. After his term in parliament he worked at VakıfBank.

Erdoğan named him governor of the central bank in March 2021, BBC News Türkçe noted. As a columnist for the pro-government daily Yeni Şafak, he had argued for low interest rates and criticized his predecessor Naci Ağbal's rate hikes. He wrote that raising rates would also push up inflation. That view echoed Erdoğan's own and has been criticized by economists. Under his leadership, the bank's one-week repo rate fell from 19% to 8.5% by February 2023, according to central bank records. Inflation rose sharply over the same period. It remains high today: the annual rate was 29.77% in October, as covered in our report on the latest inflation figures. When Hafize Gaye Erkan was appointed central bank governor after the May 2023 elections, Kavcıoğlu moved to the BDDK. His appointment was published on June 9, 2023.

1. 2023-06-09Kavcıoğlu moves from the central bank to head the BDDK
2. 2026-09-30BDDK board hands shareholder rights tied to Destek, Hedef and Tera banks to the TMSF
3. 2026-10-16BDDK briefs parliament on the İktisat Katılım license
4. 2026-10-30Savcı Sayan posts questions; BDDK calls the claims unfounded
5. 2026-11-07BDDK department head Mustafa Alper Taş jailed
6. 2026-11-08Department head Bilal Soysal jailed; detention ordered for deputy chair Erişen
7. 2026-11-11Kavcıoğlu asks Erdoğan to relieve him

Source: BDDK, DW Türkçe, BBC News Türkçe

What is still unknown#

Several basic questions remain open. Prosecutors have not said whether Kavcıoğlu is a suspect, a witness or neither. The evidence behind the jailing of his three officials has not been published, and the charges against each have not been fully disclosed. The presidency had not, by Wednesday afternoon, announced who would run the agency or when a new chair would be named. The AKP's promised statement and Güler's bill were still to come.

The claims made by Savcı Sayan and Ramazan Başak have not been confirmed by any official body. Kavcıoğlu's own account of his meetings has not been tested either. This article will be updated as the investigation produces documents that can be checked. For how we handle allegations and sources, see our methodology.

Differing perspectives

What does the bank regulator chief's resignation mean for accountability in Turkey's investment fund investigation?

Each position is summarized as its supporters make it, with equal weight and in alphabetical order. A summary is not an endorsement; the evidence for each is weighed in the story above.

• The agency had no role in the fund scheme

  Who holds it: Şahap Kavcıoğlu and the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK)

  The BDDK says the allegations against it and its chair are entirely unfounded and have no legal or factual basis. Its duties are set by law, and its role in the fund collapse is limited to that framework. Owning a portfolio company does not bar a bank license, and the agency stopped İktisat Katılım from starting business once trouble emerged. Kavcıoğlu says he stepped aside only to protect the institution, and that neither he nor his family holds money in funds or stocks.

  In their words: Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) ↗

• The start of a process of accountability

  Who holds it: Savcı Sayan, former AKP mayor of Ağrı, who publicly questioned Kavcıoğlu

  Sayan argues that the departure is a removal from office rather than a voluntary resignation. In his view it shows that President Erdoğan will not shield officials who abuse public office, whatever their rank. He says questions about the İktisat Katılım license, the Pusula funds and meetings with fund owners must now be answered in full, and that the resignation should be the first step of that accounting rather than the end of it.

  In their words: Savcı Sayan on X ↗

• The system that appointed them is responsible

  Who holds it: Opposition YENİ Parti lawmakers, including deputy group chair Murat Emir and İzmir MP Ümit Özlale

  YENİ Parti lawmakers argue that regulators failed to act while a multibillion-dollar scheme ran through the financial system they were meant to protect. They say officials leave only after losing internal power struggles, pledging loyalty to one man on the way out, which they call the AKP-style presidential system. Özlale argues that Kavcıoğlu's record at the central bank and the BDDK impoverished citizens and that a resignation does not settle responsibility for it.

  In their words: Cumhuriyet ↗

{{cite news |title=Turkey's bank regulator chief Kavcıoğlu quits as fund probe jails three of his top officials |url=https://567politics.com/news/turkey-bddk-kavcioglu-resigns-fund-probe-erisen-soysal-tas-savci-sayan-november-2026 |work=567politics |author=567 Politics staff |date=2026-11-11 |language=en}}

{
  "id": "https://567politics.com/news/turkey-bddk-kavcioglu-resigns-fund-probe-erisen-soysal-tas-savci-sayan-november-2026",
  "type": "article-newspaper",
  "title": "Turkey's bank regulator chief Kavcıoğlu quits as fund probe jails three of his top officials",
  "URL": "https://567politics.com/news/turkey-bddk-kavcioglu-resigns-fund-probe-erisen-soysal-tas-savci-sayan-november-2026",
  "container-title": "567politics",
  "language": "en",
  "author": [
    {
      "literal": "567 Politics staff"
    }
  ],
  "issued": {
    "date-parts": [
      [
        2026,
        11,
        11
      ]
    ]
  }
}

<iframe src="https://567politics.com/embed/news/turkey-bddk-kavcioglu-resigns-fund-probe-erisen-soysal-tas-savci-sayan-november-2026?theme=auto" title="Turkey's bank regulator chief Kavcıoğlu quits as fund probe jails three of his top officials by 567politics" width="100%" height="440" style="border:0;max-width:100%" loading="lazy"></iframe>
<p style="font-size:14px">Turkey's bank regulator chief Kavcıoğlu quits as fund probe jails three of his top officials by <a href="https://567politics.com/news/turkey-bddk-kavcioglu-resigns-fund-probe-erisen-soysal-tas-savci-sayan-november-2026" rel="nofollow">567politics</a></p>
<script async src="https://567politics.com/embed.js"></script>