A new name and surname with obtaining Turkish citizenship through investment

[aniglo22]

Child Poverty, You forgot to add that the figures of child poverty in Turkey are correlated directly to the migrant crisis, achieved by US wars around Turkey. Turkey has one of the world's largest populations of migrants. It is officially 5.xM but unofficially believed to be far higher and around 7.xM. Majority of child poverty is in the South East as well, which has the highest migrant populations. The rest of Turkey is vastly different, similarly to any large country, including the US, which has the most extreme poverty out of the OECD and happens to also be the wealthiest country on earth on paper. It is all but unbelievable to most that 16.x% of the state of New York lives under the poverty line, yet NYC which is in NYS, is one of the worlds largest free standing economies numbering into the trillions.

Bank to Capital Ratio, what you've copy and pasted from Google isn't making sense. Turkey's CAR rate is 8.2% compared to US's 8.5%. This shows Turkish banks have enough funds available to handle a reasonable amount of losses and prevent insolvency and the assets Turkish banks hold are of low risk.

Industrial Production, these are normal fluctuations, not indicative of any systemic problem. There is still a net increase in exports when looking at all sectors. Sector specific fluctuations are based on many factors. As for Trump, it is highly unlikely he will be proceeding with any of the idiotic policies that were nothing more than blather to his ignorant followers. He has hired a roster of mostly democrat and will follow in lock step with the previous administration in continuing the policies of the Biden administration; CHIPS act, Build Back better Program, and the Green Initiative. Furthermore, such tariffs would push Turkey further into the hands of BRICS and other other non-western nations, putting an even greater strain on the US and the USD dominance.

Kurds, very minimal, it of course an issue, an artificial one created by the US, but it is quite contained. Not to mention Turkey's dominance in the region plus Africa outsizes the problem significantly.

You are comparing two Bank to Capital Ratios without any context about the risk environments...
Same ratio ≠ Same risk coverage
Turkey has much more risk with each capital unit ....(Extreme currency volatility, much higher sovereign risk, hyperinflationary environment).
Even when using identical risk-weighted calculations (Basel III) the same weights represent much higher risks in Turkey.
Where in the world are the assets that the Turkish banks hold classified as low risk .

 

[LFGC]

You are comparing two Bank to Capital Ratios without any context about the risk environments...
Same ratio ≠ Same risk coverage
Turkey has much more risk with each capital unit ....(Extreme currency volatility, much higher sovereign risk, hyperinflationary environment).
Even when using identical risk-weighted calculations (Basel III) the same weights represent much higher risks in Turkey.
Where in the world are the assets that the Turkish banks hold classified as low risk .

Enjoying the back and forth sir, even though I may have come off condescending at first (apologies, I misjudged; the quality of conservation on the internet is usually low), I respect your knowledge and ability to converse on a high level. You've made some good points. I also agree, there is obviously higher risk in Turkey. With that being said, Turkish banks are well capitalized even though there is an over-reliance on foreign capital. IMO, there is unlikely to be any black swan event that would jeopardize stability in Turkey. Turkey has invested wisely the last two decades into infrastructure, education, healthcare, defense, manufacturing, energy, and leads in several geopolitical areas most notably the Eastern Mediterranean, Eurasia, and Africa. They're one of the few countries that have successfully been able to play geopolitics while maintaining relatively good terms with US, EU, Russia, China, and various other countries in the region. The original topic of this thread was Turkish citizenship. There is still a lot of benefit in Turkish citizenship, especially as a 2nd or 3rd citizenship.

 

[JackAlabama]

I got second Turkish citizenship by investment so I will touch on a few questions asked earlier.
1) Yes, you can change your name. (I haven't done that though)
2) Place of birth will be present in your passport in "City/Country" format
3) It took me a bit less than a year until I got the passport. Pretty typical. Not 3 months for sure. BTW, the "printing passport" step was about a month itself, citizenship approved earlier
4) Military service for children maybe (there are some exceptions, don't know details) but not for yourself
5) Currency is collapsing indeed. Don't expect to rent out property for decent returns, Turkish lira is plummeting and you are legally not allowed to index rent fast enough.
6) They didn't ask me for source of funds. I paid via crypto broker actually, think "real estate company receiving large USD transfer from random guy from Singapore". It was some time ago, things were changing.

A few more important remarks.
1) Very difficult to find reliable services. Real estate agents are trying to rack up prices, lawyers have no idea of laws, fixers take money and disappear. Rampant. Bad. Really bad. I basically can hardly do anything in the country as there are almost no good service providers.
2) Don't buy offplan properties, I know people without money, property, citizenship.
3) Real estate is not a good investment. I'm a member of a small private chat of new naturalized Turkish citizens. There was 1 guy getting some proper returns and 50 of us who are not happy.
4) I must emphasize. REALLY BAD SERVICES. I had (upper tier, established) lawyers taking prepayment and ghosting me until I show up in person. I had numerous mistakes in all documents. Real estate agents sending an offer for a unit which I find online in two minutes but $20K cheaper. Et cetera. Very inconvenient.
5) Local banks are bad, even bank cards have problems outside of Turkey sometimes.
6) There is a government address registration system. You need to declare where you live. If you register a Turkish address you become a tax resident (yes, taxing worldwide income). If you don't then government offices and banks don't want to do anything for you.

Overall I'm not a fan. If you have a real need for another passport then sure go for it. It works. If it's "to have just in case", it was not a pleasant experience honestly.

Hope it helps, ready to answer your questions.

Its highly valuable to have honest reviews such as yours here and not the constant sunshine happy go lucky shilling from the influencer crowd.

 

[LFGC]

Its highly valuable to have honest reviews such as yours here and not the constant sunshine happy go lucky shilling from the influencer crowd.

It is important to note that most of the online experiences you will come across are net-negative. Forums and other venues give the ability for those that are dissatisfied a way to vent. It should be obvious, but you should not be following any influencers when looking for tax advice, citizenship by investment programs, or any other form of life planning.

On the topic of Turkey, I've found local law firms, banks, and real estate professionals to be just that, consummate professionals. Furthermore, registering in the government address registration system (e-Devlet) does absolutely not make you a tax resident. Judging by that comment, the OP appears to have received very poor advice and has no real boots on the ground in Turkey. Also, Turkish banks are not known to have issues with bank cards outside of Turkey; it would be nice to know which bank and location this was an issue. Turkish bank Garanti BBVA for example is one of the best known ways to acquire Amex charge cards (Platinum, Centurion). There is a less cumbersome process than dealing with Amex directly and annual membership fees are cheaper, while retaining most of the important benefits. The bigger question is why are you dealing with local Turkish banks? There are many better jurisdictions in to bank, invest in, and be a tax resident in. Acquiring citizenship does not force one into any of the aforementioned things.

As for real estate, real estate is a "bad investment" in most cases for most people. This is of course not black and white and is highly dependent on your net worth and investment strategy, and obviously your need for citizenship in the country you're investing in, but usually the overheads of maintenance, property taxes, interest on loans, and cost of opportunity with having large amounts (relative to most peoples portfolios) locked up in real estate while they can be earning more with similar risk elsewhere are all factors. Trophy real estate is often times desired by the wealthy as a store of value because unlike most asset classes real estate is not as volatile and has a low maximum draw down. Unless you're operating a for profit real estate business with a large number of rental units in highly stable economies and earning in very stable currencies real estate is in most cases a bad investment if you're looking for stable cash flows. Even so given that most of the world's developed countries are running perpetual deficits or are endlessly printing there are real estate bubbles all over in US, China, Turkey, and Russia to name a few.

 

[PinkCat]

I can't believe how high quality this thread turned out to be! I didn't just learn all the details about turkish citizenship but can converse at professor level about Turkey economics now!

 

[JackAlabama]

It looks like this to me:
This solution can work and add some value to certain people, but it requires some heavy lifting/learning and extended on ground experience before execution. The process is not by any means not as simple as portrayed by the commonly known influencer crowd.