Fintech companies in Turkey: licenses and how to check one

Short answer: Fintech companies in Turkey that handle payments, e-money, deposits, investments or crypto need a license from the Central Bank of the Republic of Türkiye (TCMB), the banking regulator BDDK or the Capital Markets Board (SPK). Each publishes a register: on 5 November 2026 TCMB listed 20 payment and 55 e-money institutions, and BDDK listed 67 banks, six tagged digital bank. No official body ranks fintech companies, so check a partner's legal name and permitted services on the register itself.

A foreign firm choosing a Turkish partner needs three answers: which regulator licenses the activity, what the partner's license allows, and whether the company on the contract is the one on the register. Facts below come from TCMB, BDDK and SPK texts and registers read on 5 November 2026.

Disclosure: Fincode is itself a Turkish software company, so it is not neutral here. It holds none of these licenses and appears on none of the registers checked for this guide. For setting up your own entity, see company formation in Turkey.

Turkish financial regulators: who licenses which fintech activity

Three bodies license almost all regulated fintech work in Turkey: TCMB for payments and e-money, BDDK (Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency) for banks, and SPK for investment, crowdfunding and crypto services.

Article 13 of Law No. 6493 reserves payment services to banks, payment and e-money institutions and the postal operator PTT; Article 28 sets one to three years' imprisonment for acting as a payment or e-money institution without a permit, or implying one in a trade name or advertisement. MASAK, the Financial Crimes Investigation Board, licenses no one; its Measures Regulation (Article 4) puts banks, brokers, payment and e-money institutions, insurers and crypto providers under anti-money-laundering duties.

How many fintech companies are in Turkey?

No register counts fintech companies, because Turkish law has no fintech license; only licenses can be counted.

No published total traces to an official register, so none is repeated. Some fintech work needs no payment license: Article 12(2)(ğ) of Law No. 6493 excludes technical services such as processing and securing data or supplying IT and networks, provided the provider at no point owns the funds being transferred. Whether a model qualifies is for Turkish counsel to say.

Turkish fintech association: TÖDEB and the statutory bodies

Payment and e-money institutions must join TÖDEB, the Payment and Electronic Money Institutions Association of Turkey; banks, lenders and capital markets firms have their own professional associations.

• TÖDEB: under Additional Article 1 of Law No. 6493, each institution must apply within one month of licensing. Its members page showed 20 payment and 55 e-money institutions on 5 November 2026, matching TCMB.
• Capital markets side: investment firms, crowdfunding platforms and crypto providers must apply to TSPB (Türkiye Sermaye Piyasaları Birliği) within three months of authorization (Law No. 6362 Article 74(1)).
• Banking side: BDDK lists three associations: Türkiye Bankalar Birliği (TBB), Türkiye Katılım Bankaları Birliği (TKBB, participation banks) and Finansal Kurumlar Birliği (FKB).
• Membership is not a license; only the regulator's register shows one.

TÖDEB's page lists members' brands, agents and branches, which helps map an app to a legal name; copy the name from TCMB, though, as at least one TÖDEB trade name differed from it on 5 November 2026.

How to read a TCMB payment institution register row

Each row gives a legal name, an institution code and ticks against the service letters of Law No. 6493 Article 12(1); the firm may offer only what is ticked.

Three traps on 5 November 2026: brands are not printed, so search the legal name; revoked and merged firms sit in plain lists below the tables; and in six of the 75 rows some columns hold a red mark instead of a tick, with no legend; ask TCMB.

Check a name against TCMB's registers in Python

This script, run on 5 November 2026, reads both TCMB tables and prints every row whose legal name contains all your words.

import html, re, sys, urllib.request

BASE = ("https://www.tcmb.gov.tr/wps/wcm/connect/TR/TCMB+TR/Main+Menu/"
        "Temel+Faaliyetler/Odeme+Hizmetleri/")
PAGES = {"payment": "Odeme+Kuruluslari", "e-money": "Elektronik+Para+Kuruluslari"}
LETTERS = ["a", "b", "c", "ç", "d", "e", "f", "g", "e-money"]
FOLD = str.maketrans("çğıİöşüÇĞIÖŞÜ", "cgiiosucgiosu")

def fold(text):
    return text.translate(FOLD).lower()

def rows(page):
    req = urllib.request.Request(BASE + page, headers={"User-Agent": "Mozilla/5.0"})
    with urllib.request.urlopen(req, timeout=30) as resp:
        text = resp.read().decode("utf-8")
    found = []
    for tr in re.findall(r"<tr.*?</tr>", text, re.S):
        cells = [html.unescape(re.sub(r"<[^>]+>", "", td)).strip()
                 for td in re.findall(r"<td.*?</td>", tr, re.S)]
        if len(cells) >= 11 and cells[0].isdigit():
            found.append(cells)
    if not found:
        raise RuntimeError("no register rows; the page layout may have changed")
    return found

def check(name):
    words = fold(name).split()
    if not words:
        raise ValueError("give part of the legal trade name")
    hits = []
    for kind, page in PAGES.items():
        for r in rows(page):
            if all(w in fold(r[2]) for w in words):
                marks = list(zip(LETTERS, r[3:12]))
                hits.append((kind, r[1], r[2], [k for k, m in marks if m == "ü"],
                             [k for k, m in marks if m not in ("", "ü")]))
    return hits

if __name__ == "__main__":
    query = " ".join(sys.argv[1:])
    try:
        hits = check(query)
    except (ValueError, RuntimeError, OSError) as exc:
        sys.exit(f"Stopped: {exc}")
    for kind, code, title, ticked, unclear in hits:
        extra = f" | unexplained mark: {', '.join(unclear)}" if unclear else ""
        print(f"{kind} {code} {title} | ticked: {', '.join(ticked) or 'none'}{extra}")
    print(f"{len(hits)} match(es) in TCMB's active tables")

Output for a company that is not licensed:

$ python tcmb_check.py Fincode
0 match(es) in TCMB's active tables

Tested paths: an empty query, a network or HTTP error and a page with no rows each stop with a reason rather than report no match; a reordered TCMB table would need new column indexes. A two-word query matched 16 rows and printed all 16. Revoked lists and BDDK stay manual checks.

Partnering with a licensed Turkish payment institution from abroad

Under Article 19 of TCMB's payment services regulation of 1 December 2021, a foreign payment company may serve a Turkish institution's customers only alongside that licensed institution, only for cross-border payments and only after TCMB approves it.

• Scope (paragraph 1): sender or recipient must be abroad.
• Visibility (2): the foreign company may not be the sole face of the service, suggest a Turkish license through its brand, or run a website aimed at Turkish residents.
• Home license (4): it must be authorized for payments or e-money at home.
• Responsibility (5): the Turkish institution stays liable to customers, and the volume counts in its collateral and own-funds calculations.
• Application (7): the contract, a business plan covering office, staff, complaints and marketing in Turkey, the home license, the latest audited consolidated report and an AML letter from the home supervisor.
• Records and systems (12, 13): records stay in Turkey; foreign systems may stay abroad only if every transaction passes through the Turkish institution's systems and audit trail.

TCMB's list of approved pairings under Article 19(7) had four entries on 5 November 2026. Article 21 of TCMB's information systems communiqué keeps institutions' primary and secondary systems and backups in Turkey, together with outsourcing providers' systems used for payment transactions, and since October 2023 lets institutions share abroad only the data a cross-border payment needs, while still storing it in Turkey.

Fintech banks in Turkey: digital banks and banking as a service

BDDK tagged six of 67 banks as digital banks on 5 November 2026 (three deposit, three participation), under a regulation published in the Resmî Gazete on 29 December 2021 (issue 31704) that also lets banks serve fintech firms as service banks.

For a foreign fintech, Article 13(1) is the key line: service model banking needs an interface provider resident in Turkey.

What a Turkish partner's license does not cover, and how to check

A license covers one legal entity and the services ticked on its row; it does not extend to your company, your brand or other activities.

• Other regulators: a payment or e-money license is not a banking, investment or crypto license.
• Your wording: Law No. 6493 Article 28(2) and Article 13(3) of the BDDK regulation bar wording that implies a permit you lack.
• Crypto: SPK's list, dated 28 October 2026, is marked temporary and says listing is not authorization; one entry has carried a Board restriction on new customers since 23 September 2026. Article 99/A of Capital Markets Law No. 6362 treats activity by foreign crypto-asset platforms directed at Turkish residents as unauthorized. See is crypto legal in Turkey.
• Your users: Measures Regulation Article 5(1)(a) requires identification in any continuing business relationship, so the partner runs its own checks.

Then check the company:

1. Get the trade name, tax ID and MERSİS number in writing, not a brand.
2. Find that exact name on the right register, check its letters and the revoked lists; TCMB license decisions also appear in the Resmî Gazete (Law No. 6493 Articles 15(1) and 19).
3. For cross-border work, find the pairing on the Article 19(7) list; for banking as a service, on the bank's list.
4. Confirm the entity in the Trade Registry Gazette (TOBB), whose free notice queries needed a member login on 5 November 2026. Tax ID routes at the Revenue Administration (GİB) are in Turkey VAT number check, signatory checks in software development company in Turkey.
5. Save dated copies, because the registers change.

For integration work in general, see Fincode's project and product analysis service and the fintech app development cost guide; neither implies a tie to any registered firm.

Frequently asked questions

What are the biggest fintech companies in Turkey?

No official body ranks them, and this guide does not; published size figures trace to no official source.

Who regulates fintech in Turkey?

TCMB licenses payment and e-money institutions, BDDK licenses banks including digital banks, and SPK licenses investment firms, crowdfunding platforms and crypto providers. MASAK sets anti-money-laundering duties but licenses no one.

Are there digital banks in Turkey?

Yes. BDDK tagged six of 67 banks as digital banks on 5 November 2026. They need at least TRY 1 billion of paid-in capital and, with narrow exceptions, lend only to consumers and SMEs.

Can a foreign fintech offer payments in Turkey without a Turkish license?

Only with a licensed Turkish institution, only for cross-border payments, and only after TCMB approves the foreign company under Article 19 of TCMB's 2021 regulation.

Is TÖDEB membership mandatory?

Yes for payment and e-money institutions, which must apply within one month of licensing under Additional Article 1 of Law No. 6493.

Sources

• TCMB: Payment institutions register, with revoked and ended lists, read 5 November 2026 (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• TCMB: E-money institutions register, with revoked and ended lists, read 5 November 2026 (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• TCMB: Companies permitted under Article 19(7) of the Regulation (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• Mevzuat: Law No. 6493, consolidated text, Articles 12, 13, 15, 18, 19, 28 and Additional Article 1 (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• TCMB: Regulation on Payment Services and Electronic Money, Resmî Gazete 1 December 2021 no. 31676, Article 19 (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• TCMB: Communiqué on Information Systems of Payment and E-Money Institutions, Article 21 as amended 7 October 2023 (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• BDDK: List of banks, read 5 November 2026 (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• Mevzuat: BDDK Regulation on Digital Banks and Service Model Banking, Resmî Gazete 29 December 2021 no. 31704 (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• BDDK: Professional associations list (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• TÖDEB: Members of the Association, read 5 November 2026 (opens in a new tab)
• SPK: Crypto asset service providers operating list (provisional), dated 28 October 2026, read 5 November 2026 (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• SPK: Crowdfunding platforms listed by the Board, read 5 November 2026 (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• Mevzuat: Capital Markets Law No. 6362, consolidated text, Articles 35/A, 35/B and 99/A (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• Mevzuat: Regulation on Measures against Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (2007/13012), Articles 4 and 5 (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)
• Türkiye Ticaret Sicili Gazetesi (Trade Registry Gazette, TOBB): trade name search and notices (Turkish) (opens in a new tab)

This guide is general information, not legal or tax advice. Rules and official registers change: check the date given for each fact and the official source before you rely on it, and ask a licensed adviser about your own situation. Sources, checks and corrections: see the editorial policy.