Turkey’s financial sector has begun to recover: by the end of 2025, total bank assets had grown by 43.8% to 46.9 trillion lira ($1.2 trillion) — significantly higher than cumulative inflation (34.9%). In the previous three years, asset growth had been eroded by inflation, which peaked at 85.5%. The loan portfolio grew by 44.1% in 2025, while deposits rose by 44%.
The Turkish government’s medium-term programme for 2026–2028 confirms that inflation is expected to slow to 16% in 2026 and fall to single digits by 2027–2028. GDP growth is forecast at 3.4% in 2026. Analysts note that the current situation provides a favourable environment for launching new financial projects.
How Freedom Holding Corp. is entering the market
In January 2025, Freedom Holding Corp. obtained a brokerage licence: the Turkish Capital Markets Board approved the establishment of Freedom Yatırım. For Turkey, this is possibly the first new licence granted to a foreign broker in 20 years. By October 2025, Freedom Yatırım’s authorised capital had been increased from 325 million to 655 million lira.
The second step came in March 2026, when Freedom Holding Corp. announced the purchase of a 99.32% stake in Turkish Bank A.Ş. from Özyol Holding and the National Bank of Kuwait. The deal covers only Turkish Bank, which has been operating in Turkey since 1982; its branches in the UK and Cyprus are not included in the agreement. According to the Turkish platform KAP, the bank’s assets at the end of 2025 stood at 8.8 billion lira ($205 million), with capital of around 1 billion lira ($25 million).
“We are entering Turkey with our digital product and ecosystem, centred around the SuperApp. The acquisition of the bank is a logical next step in expanding our presence in a market where we see significant long-term potential,” said Timur Turlov. “Over the past five years, we have been studying the Turkish market, exploring its opportunities. It is large and much more active than most Asian markets.”
Freedom Holding Corp. plans to allocate 20–30% of its annual profit to the development of its Turkish operations. According to Turlov’s estimates, the minimum capital requirements for banks in Turkey are around $300 million, and a significant proportion of local banks do not meet them — which creates opportunities to enter the market through acquisitions. Following the completion of the deal, Freedom Holding plans to invest in the technological modernisation of Turkish Bank and expand its product range in retail, small and medium-sized businesses.
Ecosystem as a means of entry
Timur Turlov has repeatedly emphasised that Freedom Holding Corp. is entering new markets not with individual products, but with an ecosystem. “When banking services, investments, payments and digital services operate on a single platform, they reinforce one another. For example, the journey the company undertook in Kazakhstan over ten years took just two years in Tajikistan,” he explained.
Freedom Holding Corp.’s ecosystem has been established in Kazakhstan and includes a bank, a broker, insurance, a payment service, telecoms and lifestyle services (Arbuz.kz, Ticketon, Freedom Travel, media). The number of SuperApp users has reached 5 million, doubling in a year; the group’s total audience exceeds 11 million. Freedom Bank ranks among the country’s top ten banks. The holding’s total revenue for the first nine months of the 2026 financial year was $1.69 billion, with assets of $12.38 billion (+25% year-on-year) . Freedom’s institutional shareholders today include global players such as BlackRock, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
According to analysts’ estimates, Turkey is ready for the super-app format. According to the European Banking Federation, there are over 120 million digital bank accounts registered in the country, with a population of 90 million. The volume of mobile transactions in 2024 grew by 71%, and Turkey, according to Market.biz estimates, ranks first in the world in terms of the proportion of the population actively using mobile banking (85%).
The Turkish market is part of a broader strategy. Freedom Holding Corp. operates in 21 countries. Over the past year and a half, the group has entered the Tajikistan market, obtained a licence in Abu Dhabi, and is preparing to launch a bank in Georgia. This year, Freedom Travel is expanding into Europe with the aim of competing with Booking and Airbnb. Within the next three to five years, Freedom Holding does not rule out launching a SuperApp in the US as well. Against the backdrop of these plans, moving the ecosystem to Turkey – with a population of 90 million and a high level of digital maturity – will serve as a global test of the Freedom model and influence the holding’s expansion into other regions.