Treasury teams and fintechs want money that moves by itself: a supplier paid the moment delivery is confirmed, collateral topped up at 3 a.m. on a Sunday. As of October 2026, Türkiye has no statute on smart contracts or programmable payments, but the field is not empty. The Turkish Code of Obligations already regulates conditional obligations, Law No. 6493 already protects settlement finality and system collateral, and TCMB’s FAST system already runs 24/7 with an escrow-style overlay. The gaps sit elsewhere: written form rules that code cannot satisfy, the line between holding funds and taking deposits, and the ban on crypto assets in payments, which shuts out on-chain cash legs.
Programmable treasury in one paragraph
“Programmable treasury” means attaching rules to money movements so that a payment, a collateral release or a netting run happens automatically when data shows a condition is met. The rule can sit in a bank’s systems (an API instruction triggered by an ERP event) or in a smart contract on a distributed ledger. The legal questions are the same either way: is the underlying agreement valid, who may hold the money while the condition is pending, when is a transfer final, and what happens if the data feed (the “oracle”) is wrong.
Contract law: conditions work, form requirements do not
Under Article 170 of the Turkish Code of Obligations (TBK), a contract whose effect depends on an uncertain future fact is subject to a suspensive condition and, unless otherwise agreed, takes effect only when the condition is fulfilled; Article 173 covers resolutive conditions. While a condition is pending, the debtor must not obstruct proper performance, and dispositions that impair the conditional right are invalid to that extent (Article 171). Article 175 matters most for oracle design: if a party prevents the condition in breach of good faith, it is deemed fulfilled; if a party brings it about in breach of good faith, it is deemed not fulfilled.
The friction is form. Contracts need no form unless the law requires one, but where it does, non-compliant contracts produce no effect (Article 12). Written form requires the signatures of those taking on obligations (Article 14), and a secure electronic signature has the same effect as a handwritten one (Article 15; Law No. 5070, Art. 5). A wallet’s private-key signature is not by itself a secure electronic signature: Law No. 5070 Article 4 requires, among other things, a qualified electronic certificate identifying the signatory.
| Arrangement | Form rule | Can code alone satisfy it? |
|---|---|---|
| Ordinary conditional sale or service payment | No form required (TBK Art. 12) | Yes, subject to proof |
| Assignment of receivables (e.g. invoices auto-routed to a financier) | Written form (TBK Art. 184) | No; wet ink or secure e-signature needed |
| Suretyship backing a credit line | Written form, maximum amount, date, guarantor’s own handwriting (TBK Art. 583) | No; security contracts other than bank letters of guarantee and Turkish insurers’ surety bonds cannot even be made by secure e-signature (Law No. 5070, Art. 5) |
| Collateral over capital market instruments recorded at MKK | Written form (Capital Markets Law Art. 47(1)) | No |
Evidence is the second layer. Electronic data are “documents” under Article 199 of the Code of Civil Procedure (HMK), but only data created with a secure electronic signature count as a deed (senet) under Article 205(2), and transactions above the Article 200 threshold (revalued every year) must be proved by deed. Parties may agree in writing on how facts will be proved (Article 193), so an evidence clause recognising ledger records is useful, provided it does not make proof impossible or extremely difficult for one side.
Holding money until the condition is met
Someone must hold the funds until release. Only banks and payment service providers may provide payment services (Law No. 6493, Art. 13(2)), and acting like a payment or e-money institution without a TCMB permit carries one to three years’ imprisonment and a judicial fine (Art. 28(1)). A payment institution may keep payment accounts only if they are used for payment transactions, and funds it receives for payment services are not deposits (Art. 14(3)). Only credit institutions and those authorised under special laws may accept deposits as a profession (Banking Law No. 5411, Art. 60).
TCMB’s payment services Regulation treats funds held for a customer and not yet paid to the payee as “payment funds” (Art. 34(1)). They must be segregated, used only to execute the payment and never given as collateral, and if still unpaid at 16:30 (12:00 on half days) on the next business day they go into a safeguarding account at a bank (Art. 34(2)-(3)); our piece on overnight yield on safeguarded funds covers the March 2026 change. The Regulation handles date-based triggers (Arts. 58(3) and 67(1): a payment agreed for a later date is executed on that date) but not release on an open-ended, data-driven condition. Our reading: a short conditional window tied to a specific payment stays within payment services, while open-ended holding moves toward the deposit line. TCMB has not drawn that boundary; where it matters, raise it with the regulator.
TCMB’s own FAST “Secure Payment” overlay (Güvenli Ödeme İşlemi, the Escrow Overlay Service in TCMB’s annual report) keeps the price at a FAST participant until an authorised body such as the Union of Notaries confirms registration, then pays the seller. Second-hand vehicle sales came first; FAST’s FAQ lists a TRY 5,000,000 limit.
24/7 settlement and collateral: what Turkish law protects
FAST, launched on 8 January 2021, runs 24/7 and processes Turkish lira payments only; as of October 2026 its FAQ lists a TRY 300,000 per-transaction limit for transfers and Request-to-Pay. Request-to-Pay lets a payer accept now and have payment execute automatically on a later date set by the payee, with partial, early and deferred payment functions live since 18 January 2025.
For systems TCMB designates in the Official Gazette (Law No. 6493, Art. 11), system rules must fix the moment a transfer order becomes irrevocable, after which neither the participant nor a third party can revoke it (Art. 10(1)). Collateral taken by a system operator is held in a separate account, is outside the reach of statutory measures restricting disposal and, for assets other than capital market instruments, can be realised without notice, court approval or auction (Art. 10(7)). TCMB reported eight payment systems and four securities settlement systems operating under the Law at the end of 2025.
In capital markets, collateral held at clearing institutions cannot be attached, pledged or included in a bankruptcy estate (Capital Markets Law Art. 73(2)), and clearing instructions stay irrevocable even if a member is suspended or liquidated (Art. 79(1)). Takasbank’s central counterparty regulation was first published in the Official Gazette on 14 August 2013.
The cash leg is the hard limit. TCMB’s Regulation on the Non-Use of Crypto Assets in Payments (Official Gazette 16 April 2021, in force 30 April 2021) bars the direct or indirect use of crypto assets in payments, bars payment service providers from business models using them, and bars payment and e-money institutions from intermediating transfers to or from crypto platforms. A smart contract can trigger a lira payment through a licensed provider; it cannot pay a Turkish supplier in a stablecoin. Our article on stablecoins and tokenised deposits looks at where tokenised money may go next.
The EU picture for firms with EU counterparties
The Settlement Finality Directive (98/26/EC) makes transfer orders and netting in designated systems enforceable and binding on third parties even if a participant becomes insolvent, provided they entered the system before proceedings opened (Art. 3(1)); orders cannot be revoked after the moment set by system rules (Art. 5); and collateral rights in connection with a system are not affected by the provider’s insolvency (Art. 9(1)).
The Financial Collateral Directive (2002/47/EC) stops Member States from making financial collateral arrangements depend on any formal act (Art. 3(1)), allows enforcement without prior notice, court approval or public auction (Art. 4(4)), and makes close-out netting work notwithstanding winding-up proceedings (Art. 7).
On DLT, the ECB announced on 1 July 2025 a two-track plan: Pontes, linking DLT platforms to TARGET Services for settlement in central bank money, with a pilot planned by the end of the third quarter of 2026, and Appia, a longer-term project. On 26 August 2026, Executive Board member Piero Cipollone said the Eurosystem intends to go live with Pontes this year and aims for an Appia blueprint in 2028.
What remains unclear in Türkiye
- No rule defines when conditional holding of funds by a payment institution stops being a payment service and becomes deposit-taking.
- Nothing specific says who bears the loss when an oracle feeds false data; TBK Article 175 and general liability rules will decide case by case.
- Law No. 6493’s finality protection covers designated systems, not a private blockchain or a bilateral smart contract.
- KVKK Article 7 requires deletion, destruction or anonymisation once the reason for processing ends, which is hard on an immutable ledger, and nodes outside Türkiye raise the Article 9 cross-border transfer question.
Where to start
Our fintech and payments practice suggests, for a corporate treasurer:
- Sign a legal wrapper agreement (wet ink or secure e-signature) naming the condition, the data source, the governing law and an off-chain dispute rule that prevails over code.
- Keep assignments, guarantees and pledges outside the automated flow.
- Run the cash leg through a bank or a TCMB-licensed institution, never through a crypto asset.
For a fintech building conditional-payment products:
- Map each flow to a payment service in Law No. 6493 Art. 12 and check your permit scope.
- Keep holding windows short and tied to a specific payment order; apply Article 34 safeguarding from day one.
- Contract for oracle failure: named data sources, a fallback, a manual override and an HMK Article 193 evidence clause.
- Keep personal data off-chain and assess KVKK Articles 7, 9 and 12.
Is a smart contract a valid contract under Turkish law?
There is no smart contract statute, but a contract is formed by mutually consistent declarations of intent (TBK Art. 1) and generally needs no form (Art. 12), so code can execute a valid agreement. Where the law requires written form, as for assignments or suretyship, code alone is not enough.
Can a payment institution hold funds in escrow until a condition is met?
It may hold funds for payment transactions, and those funds are not deposits (Law No. 6493, Art. 14(3)), but they must be segregated and safeguarded (Regulation Art. 34). No rule expressly covers open-ended, condition-based holding, so design and permit scope need care.
Sources. Turkish Code of Obligations No. 6098 (RG 4.2.2011, No. 27836), Arts. 1, 12-15, 170-175, 184, 583; Electronic Signature Law No. 5070 (RG 23.1.2004, No. 25355), Arts. 4-5; Code of Civil Procedure No. 6100 (RG 4.2.2011, No. 27836), Arts. 193, 199, 200, 205, Additional Art. 1; Law No. 6493 (RG 27.6.2013, No. 28690), Arts. 10-14, 28; TCMB Regulation on Payment Services and Electronic Money Issuance (RG 1.12.2021, No. 31676), Arts. 34, 58, 67; Banking Law No. 5411 (RG 1.11.2005, No. 25983 bis), Art. 60; Capital Markets Law No. 6362 (RG 30.12.2012, No. 28513), Arts. 47, 73, 79; amendment to the Takasbank CCP Regulation (RG 30.7.2022, No. 31908); Regulation on the Non-Use of Crypto Assets in Payments (RG 16.4.2021, No. 31456); KVKK No. 6698 (RG 7.4.2016, No. 29677), Arts. 7, 9, 12; TCMB FAST FAQ and Secure Payment page; TCMB Annual Report 2025, section 2.5; Directive 98/26/EC (OJ L 166, 11.6.1998); Directive 2002/47/EC (OJ L 168, 27.6.2002); ECB press release of 1 July 2025 and speech of 26 August 2026.
This article is general information and not legal advice; a specific situation should be assessed with counsel.
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