welcome to Turkey Bryn I am still in total confusion with the state of Turkish banking. Slowly they are coming online but you still have to negotiate a price!
by the way, what is the Turkish for " where to stick it " it could come in so useful here!!!!!!!

I actually told them in english as they spoke it but I think the phrase is "bu bank kiçına koysun''

Thanks mate...if I get the pronounciation right I will use it alot

Can anyone tell me what the exchange rate is for pound to YTL as I went into Thomas Cook to get some as a birthday pressie for my son who is going in July and they offered me 2.16. We were getting 2.55 in Icmeler the first week in May. So I said no thanks.

It has dropped this last week and is now about 2.43 to the pound last week it was 2.512 in the banks and will probably come up a bit again in the next few weeks. I f you would like to check it daily go to http://www.ykb.com and then on their front page click on the "gunluk yapi kredi verileri" and click the option for "doviz kurlari" and that will open a window on the exchange rates. By the way Yapi Kredi babk are one of the better ones on exchange rates.

It was interesting to read about the turkish bank cash card that only worked at a few ATMs.
We are with AKbank they gave us a number to ring to activate our internet account,it never worked.
We opened a deposit account in lira when we were last there and put a set sum in with monthly interest at a agreed rate.They gave us another cardboard account card.
Does anybody know if the interest on the sum go into your original account or the new one .Also can you automatically add funds to the original sum or does it have to be a agreed sum for a agreed lenght of time.

Hi Kev,
in Akbank it's a repo account and yes you get a card. You have to withdraw and deposit on a certain day else you will loose interest. Its a barmy system but all the banks are the same. The current rate is on this link http://www.akbank.com/fiyat_oranlar/index.asp?page=2020 but it's about 15%.
you can put in as much or as little but only on the day of interest.
hope this helps

Thanks for the reply.
Could you explain a little further .
We left eqivalent of £600 in a monthly lira interest account in April.
By what you are saying will it keep gaining interest while we are not there or have we blown it by not being there each month to reinvest it?
Therefore making no interest
The cardboard cards confuse me ,we strtted with a stirling and lira acount and the 2 cards that went with them.(These did not pay interest)
So we opened the savings monthly lira acount,they gave us another 2 cards then ,both saythe same vergi No and museri number .One says tas.mev.vdl the othertas.mev.vdz
Is one possibly for the amount deposited and the interest goes in the other ?help.

If you left your dosh in a repo account then it will continue to earn interest all the time you leave it there. You can only pay in or take out on a certain day without diturbing that months interest,
Haven't got my bank books with me so cant say say what letters stand for.

Thanks Chelsea for the help .
Finally what does the following mean?
acilis Tar: 26/4/05
vade sonu: 27/5/05
Is this the day i opened the account and the monthlt interest day ?

From my limited turkish I think so. If the c in acil has a squiggle on then acik is open. and being the next is a month later then that is when you can do your transactions.
"she who must be obeyed" went to put some money in before the due date and had to open another account. Totally mad but I think we have 3 of these now at different times of the month.

can anybody tell me the best bank to go to in Turkey please
Thanks
Sue

I get the best service in Yapi Kredi and we run business accounts there so I would say they are OK

to transfer cash from hsbc uk to hsbc turkey it costs £28 - HSBC Turk also has internet access

HSBC havent got a great reputation here for service and last year if you had a UK account and one in Turkey they were doing transfers for a tenner. However I have found that they charge on a sliding scale so the larger the amount the more you pay. Best to shop around for transfers.