Türkiye will crack down on market manipulation by "certain" investment funds with tougher penalties and new regulations, Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek said Tuesday.
Addressing a gathering of bankers and investors in Istanbul, Şimşek said: "We know these manipulations are being carried out, especially through certain funds, and know there is a lack of regulation in that area. We will address this deficiency."
He did not specify which funds he was referring to in his speech to the Turkish Capital Markets Congress.
"In the fight against manipulation, we will make additional efforts to increase penalties and strengthen the regulatory framework," Şimşek said in his address at the opening of the congress.
"The fight against manipulation has many dimensions. Financial literacy is one of them. I congratulate our Capital Markets Board (SPK), our chairman (Ibrahim Gönül), and his team. We launched an important platform on this topic last year," he noted.
"Financial literacy is certainly essential in the fight against manipulation, but we will continue to make additional efforts to increase penalties and strengthen the regulatory framework," he added.
"In the coming period, we will take the fight against manipulation beyond the fight against the informal economy. This is perhaps the most important message you want to hear at this congress, and the one I want to convey."
Gönül, the SPK's head, later told reporters that it is considering raising manipulation-related fines and that one potential punishment is cancelling licenses in portfolio management, a Reuters report said.
Authorities have sharpened screening for manipulation in the past year. They have also detained dozens of people suspected of causing fluctuations in trading volumes and share prices in capital market instruments.
Years of soaring inflation have pushed Turks to find ways to protect their purchasing power, with some buying hard currencies and others turning to stocks and cryptocurrencies.
