Turkey
Payments

Türkiye combines card acceptance with FAST (the TCMB-operated instant payment rail) and TROY (the BKM-owned domestic card scheme). These are different payment routes and should not be reduced to one unsupported market-share chart. For merchant choice, check the relevant customer channel, available provider integration, contractual charges, settlement and reconciliation. BKM (Bankalararası Kart Merkezi) provides card and related infrastructure; TCMB operates FAST.

For foreign merchants, distinguish customer payment preference from the provider's legal ability to onboard the merchant and settle proceeds. The Turkey operator guide covers the authorisation and contract questions in greater detail.

Real-time payments — FAST

TCMB's 2024 annual report identifies FAST as its instant payment system, launched on 8 January 2021. It describes 24/7 operation, transfers within seconds, KOLAS easy addressing and TR QR merchant payments. The reported 12.6 million messages per day is a 2024 average, not a current checkout market share.

For an integration, ask the receiving provider to demonstrate a completed merchant-payment record, the applicable amount limit and exception handling. A supported alias or QR format does not by itself establish access for your legal entity. Card authentication products should not be treated as FAST access or authentication specifications.

Cards — TROY, Visa, Mastercard

Card acceptance and instalment offers (taksitli ödeme) are important parts of Turkish checkout. This guide does not use an old secondary card-stock count as a current market-size benchmark. For a merchant, the decision is which schemes, instalment products and routing options its acquirer actually supports.

TROY — the domestic card scheme:

TROY is Türkiye's domestic card scheme, developed and operated by BKM. A merchant's ability to accept or route a TROY transaction, including any co-badged card, depends on the actual issuer and acquiring arrangement. Compare the complete contracted costs and acceptance scope rather than presuming a lower fee.

The adoption question: A current, comparable transaction share for TROY and the international schemes is not established here. Ask the acquirer or scheme for card-volume evidence with a clear denominator before assigning a share. Whether TROY routing matters to a foreign merchant depends on its actual cardholder mix and acquiring setup.

Card cost: No market-wide credit, debit or TROY merchant discount rate is established by the sources here. Request a quote that separates the card scheme, domestic or cross-border route, instalment terms, settlement currency and additional fees. Model an instalment offer against the merchant's own margin and financing terms.

BKM Express and BKM's infrastructure role

BKM's card-scheme and infrastructure roles are distinct from TCMB's operation of FAST. Do not infer merchant access, a FAST connection or a specific authentication arrangement from a wallet's name. Evaluate the live product agreement, legal counterparty and supported payment record separately from the underlying rail.

For a wallet or QR proposal, request the merchant onboarding requirements, refund process, payout account and reconciliation fields. Confirm whether the service is currently offered to your entity and channel before allocating integration work.

Fintech wallets — Papara and Paycell

Wallet brands such as Papara and Paycell are separate products from bank cards and FAST transfers. Verify the exact legal entity and its current TCMB authorisation before relying on any proposed merchant service. A historical customer total or consumer feature list is not evidence of present availability for a foreign merchant.

Compare the payer journey, merchant agreement, refund support and destination of funds. Keep each wallet's onboarding and payout terms separate rather than assuming that every Turkish PSP offers every wallet.

E-commerce — card-dominant with installment economy

Turkish e-commerce can involve cards, FAST-enabled transfers and wallets, but the sources in this guide do not establish a representative split across these methods. Nor do they establish a universal purchase threshold or number of interest-free instalments. Compare the offered methods using a merchant's own customer mix, approval and conversion results, financing cost and payout terms.

Crypto and digital assets

TCMB's Regulation on the Disuse of Crypto Assets in Payments prohibits using crypto assets directly or indirectly in payments. Its payment-service and e-money restrictions are distinct from the regulation of trading and custody.

Do not treat reported crypto ownership or the existence of an exchange as permission for merchant crypto acceptance. Obtain product-specific legal advice before designing a payment flow involving digital assets.

Regulator and licensing — TCMB + BDDK

TCMB is the authority for payment and electronic-money institutions under Law No. 6493. BDDK supervises banks and sets relevant card-instalment rules. A banking licence and a payment-institution operating permission are different authorisations.

Check the TCMB register for the precise legal entity and permitted activities, including any restriction or suspension. Capital and ongoing own-funds requirements depend on activity and can change; no standard 12–18-month approval promise is established here.

A merchant using a licensed provider should document who contracts with it, collects the payment, handles a refund and pays out. A business itself providing regulated payment services needs a separate analysis of its authorisation obligations. See the Turkey payments operator guide for the distinctions; provider integration does not transfer a licence to the merchant.

PSP coverage

Treat a provider list as a research starting point, not proof of local acquiring, wallet coverage or merchant eligibility. Check the legal entity, current TCMB permission, supported schemes and written settlement terms for each proposal.

• iyzico: investigate its Turkish merchant products. Its corporate governance page records acquisition by the Prosus Group in 2019; it is not a PayPal-owned company.
• Bank/acquirer proposals: confirm which Turkish entity supplies card acquiring and whether the contracted instalment and TROY products apply to your merchant category.
• International platforms: distinguish accepting a Turkish customer's card through a supported overseas merchant account from onboarding a Turkish business. Stripe's global availability page does not list Türkiye as a supported Payments account country at this check; it does not support a claim of direct Turkish Stripe acquiring.
• Wallet proposals: verify current authorisation and merchant availability independently of the brand's consumer app.

A merchant-selection test

For each candidate, fill in four fields before comparing price: contracting entity; permitted payment activity; accepted payment method; payout destination/currency. If a proposal cannot identify one of these, ask for the missing documentation. Then compare approval/conversion evidence, refund handling and total charges on the same transaction profile. This avoids choosing a global brand whose supported product differs from the required local service.

For broader comparison, see Italy, Saudi Arabia and the PSP pricing comparison.