Turkey's 12th Justice Package to Criminalise IBAN Rental

The Turkish Parliament’s 12th Justice Package includes a new provision targeting the practice of lending or “renting” bank account numbers (IBANs) for illicit gains. Lawmakers plan to add a distinct paragraph to Article 158 of the Turkish Penal Code, creating a separate offence for "account‑information lending" with a prison term of one to three years, replacing the existing qualified fraud penalty of three to ten years. The amendment, prepared by the AK Party group under Abdullah Güler and discussed by Justice Commission chair Cüneyt Yüksel, aims to protect victims known as “IBAN victims” and to reduce the burden on courts. It also proposes that the penalty may be halved if the offender compensates the victim, and it will apply only to offences committed after the law’s enactment. The broader package, debated in the Justice Commission on 24 June, contains other reforms such as inheritance‑auction rules, administrative‑court changes and updates to the Insolvency Law, but the IBAN clause has drawn particular attention due to the estimated 400,000 related cases and the push to treat the conduct as an independent crime.