According to a Friday announcement by the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, the ban will come into effect on April 30, rendering any crypto payments solutions and partnerships illegal.
The bank said:
“any direct or indirect usage of crypto assets in payment services and electronic money issuance” will be forbidden.”
According to Cointelegraph, while banks are excluded from the regulation, which means users can still deposit Turkish lira on crypto exchanges using wire transfers from their bank accounts, payment providers will be unable to provide deposit or withdrawal services for crypto exchanges.
This new regulation means that users have two weeks to clear their balances if they exclusively use payment providers as fiat-to-crypto gateways.
Indeed, the Turkish government has always had a tight grip on the payment ecosystem. In 2016, Turkey banned major global payment provider PayPal in the country.
