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Turkey is currently on the cusp of a hyperinflation apparently triggered by its president's policy of maintaining nominal interest rates far below inflation. Thus Turkish banks are currently giving loans at a real interest rate of perhaps -16%, based on numbers I just read. It would thus seem to be a promising idea to borrow some lira, convert it to dollars, euros, stocks, or even gold, and then convert part back after a year or so pay back the loan using highly inflated currency. I assume there's no way for a non-Turkish person to do this (if it were too easy, probably lots of big Western institutions would be borrowing lira right now, which might even reduce the inflationary pressures) but I thought I'd ask anyhow: can a non-Turk (say, an American) plausibly take out a lira-denominated loan?

Rodrigo de Azevedo
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Kevin Carlson
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1 Answers1

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A forex buy of a USD/TRY currency-pair is essentially a borrowing and selling of the TRY and then a buying of the USD.

However, the annual interest-rate in Turkey is 14% such that the forex rollover interest to be paid by the trader would be about 14.75% annually on the leveraged amount.

Some some traders would sell the USD/TRY currency-pair and draw about 13.25% annual interest.

S Spring
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