Well put Colwyn (your explanation of ratings).
In a nutshell, the ratings agencies are saying that the current financial issues affecting the economy as a whole are now affecting the banks and from an investment perspective, its becoming riskier. Its worth remembering though, that this is from an
investment perspective, not day to day usage for savings and current accounts.
That said, there's always been an element of risk investing in Turkey, even for the man in the street - thinking back a few years I can remember when thirty odd percent was available at most banks, and for a good while rates were in the mid twenties. Returns like that do not come without an element of risk else everybody would have been chucking their money into lira at the time.
Take it back a bit further and my OH could get in the region of eighty percent on her account if she'd wanted to - only problem there was that inflation was hitting one hundred odd percent!
The early days of the AKP at least brought a certain level of financial stability that gradually brought rates down and investment started flooding into Turkey. Most of the big money deals the law firm I work for did during the mid to late 2000's and the early part of this decade were from foreign investors. Fast forward to 2017 and a lot of the tier one law firms are shedding staff...
we do have quite a bit of money in a Turkish account we invested it before all the madness re a lot of things Turkish went crazy...
...im in a bit of a dilemma now as to what to do
Not a nice dilemma unfortunately and the only person who can decide is you - what I would say though, is to make sure your money is spread about over different banks. The maximum payout under the TMSF scheme is 100,000tl per person, per institution. £22,000 or thereabouts.
One thing I did read recently, in respect of the TMSF, is that all the seized businesses ($9 billion worth) are now under the control of the TMSF. That makes a handy wee cash buffer for the time being...
JF