Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey

The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) (Türkiye Cumhuriyet Merkez Bankası, TCMB, literally "The Turkish Republic Central Bank") is the central bank of Turkey. Its responsibilities include conducting monetary and exchange rate policy, managing international reserves of Turkey, as well as printing and issuing banknotes, and establishing, maintaining and regulating payment systems in the country. The CBRT is tasked by law to achieve and maintain price and financial stability in Turkey, and has a mandate to use, by its own discretion, whichever policy instrument at its disposal to reach these objectives. Therefore, it has instrument but not goal independence. Since 2006, the CBRT follows a full-fledged inflation targeting regime. In the Ottoman Empire, economic activities such as Treasury operations, money and credit transactions and trade in gold and foreign currencies were executed by various establishments such as the Treasury, the Mint, jewelers, moneylenders, foundations and guilds. In this organizational structure that prevailed until the second half of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire minted gold coins on behalf of the Sultan. The Ottoman Empire put cash banknotes (Ottoman Turkish:Kaime-i nakdiye-i mutebere) into circulation in 1840. During the Crimean War, in 1854, the Ottoman Empire, which borrowed from other nations for the first time in history, needed a state bank to assume an intermediary function in the repayment of external debts. As a result, the Ottoman Bank (Ottoman Turkish:Bank-ı Osmanî), headquartered in London, was established with English capital in 1856. The fundamental powers of the Bank were limited to lending in small amounts, making advance payments to the Government and discounting some Treasury bills. In 1863, the Ottoman Bank was dissolved and restructured as an English-French partnership under the name “Bank-ı Osmanî-i Şahane” (Imperial Ottoman Bank) and became a state bank. The Imperial Ottoman Bank was granted the sole privilege of issuing banknotes for a period of thirty years.