Ankara: Turkey’s central bank will promote the head of its markets division to the position of deputy governor, officials told Reuters on Friday, elevating another banker with Islamic finance experience to its policy-setting committee.
Erkan Kilimci is due to be named as one of the bank’s four deputy governors shortly, the officials said, declining to be identified because the information has not yet been made public.
One of the deputy governor positions was vacated last week when Murat Cetinkaya was promoted to governor, replacing Erdem Basci whose five-year term had ended. Another deputy governor, Turalay Kenc, is serving the last day of his five-year tenure on Friday.
Officials for the central bank could not be reached for comment.
Like his new boss, Kilimci is a 40-year-old graduate of the political science and international relations department of the prestigious Bosphorus University, according to information on his Linked In profile and the Istanbul bourse website.
And like Cetinkaya — the first Islamic finance specialist to become central bank governor in Turkey — Kilimci’s resume includes work in the field which prohibits the charging of interest.
Kilimci has worked on projects such as the first Islamic Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) in Turkey as well as some of the country’s first Islamic bond issuances. Before his appointment to the central bank as an adviser in 2013, Kilimci worked at Istanbul based banks, including Islamic bank Kuveyt Turk.
Political pressure
Financial markets are watching the set-up of the central bank’s top management closely as it still remains an unknown quantity for investors, who fear the bank will buckle to political pressure and cut rates further, even as inflation remains above target.
President Tayyip Erdogan, who favours consumption-led growth, has repeatedly railed against high interest rates, equating them with treason. Erdogan says that high interest rates cause inflation, a stance at odds with orthodox economics.
