Strip the branding away and the choice is old and familiar: pay a published 0.50% for the index, or pay an unpublished active fee for the chance to beat it. Z30KP, Ziraat Portfoy's ETF, holds the BIST Katilim 30 at 8.69 billion TL of assets. KPC, KT Portfoy's flagship equity fund, picks stocks actively from the same TKBB-screened universe with an equity-intensive mandate keeping at least 80% in screened shares. The screen is identical; only the selection method and the price differ. That framing does most of the deciding for most people, but the Turkish katilim market adds two twists worth understanding before you default to the index.
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Twist one: the index is genuinely concentrated
The standard case for passive assumes the index is diversified. The Katilim 30 is not, particularly: with conventional banks and insurers excluded by the screen, the cap-weighted index leans on a handful of large industrials, holding companies, aviation and defense-adjacent names, and the top positions can dominate returns. This is the strongest honest argument for KPC: an active manager can spread risk across the wider screened universe, roughly 240 names under the TKBB standard, instead of riding the index's top-heavy basket. It is also an argument for a cheaper fix: Z30KE, the equal-weighted ETF variant, dilutes the concentration without active fees. Weigh both answers before paying for the first one.
Twist two: no katilim fund can track what your neighbor owns
The screen excludes banks, a large share of BIST's total capitalization, so every katilim equity product decouples from Turkish financials and from the mainstream indices your conventional-investing neighbor benchmarks against. In years when bank stocks lead the market, all halal equity products lag it together; in years when industrials lead, they shine together. Judge KPC against the katilim index, and the katilim index against your own commitment, not against BIST 100 headlines. Confusing screen effects with manager skill, in either direction, is the most common analytical error in this market.
The arithmetic that decides it
| Z30KP | KPC | |
|---|---|---|
| Fee | 0.50%, published | Equity-fund level, KAP prospectus only, materially above 0.50% |
| Selection | Index rules; KAFIF disclosures enforce membership quarterly | Manager discretion within the screened universe |
| Concentration | Cap-weighted Katilim 30, top-heavy | Manager can diversify across the wider screen |
| Governance | Committee in fund rules, scholars unnamed; TKBB standard via index | Published five-scholar committee |
| Access | Any brokerage account, one unit at a time | TEFAS from any bank or broker |
The burden of proof sits where it always sits: on the active fee. Before choosing KPC, open the KAP prospectus, find the fee, and demand a rolling three-year record against the katilim index net of that fee. If the manager clears the bar, the concentration-management case makes KPC a defensible core. If you cannot verify it, or do not want the homework, the published 0.50% index is the disciplined default, and pairing Z30KP with Z30KE handles the concentration objection passively.
The other actives, briefly
RBH, Albaraka Portfoy's equity fund at about 991 million TL, offers the same active proposition with boutique accountability and the market's most decorated committee; its size lets it hold mid-cap screened names the giants cannot move in. ZPE, Ziraat's own active fund at about 195 million TL, is the hard sell of the category: the same firm offers the cheaper Z30KP, and ZPE lacks a distinctive record to justify the gap. The same net-of-fee test applies to both.
Who should own which
- Most investors: Z30KP as the equity core. Cheapest published route to screened Turkish equities, mechanical compliance, zero manager risk.
- Concentration-worried, fee-sensitive: Z30KP plus Z30KE, the passive answer to the index's honest flaw.
- Believers in active management, with evidence: KPC or RBH, after the prospectus fee and the net-of-fee record both check out.
- Stock pickers: skip funds entirely and run your own screened book through Kuveyt Turk Yatirim's TradePlus, where the buy-side screen enforces compliance at the order level.
- Everyone: size Turkish equity as one sleeve of a portfolio, not the whole of it. Single-market equity concentration is a risk no screen removes.
The index mechanics behind everything here, including how KAFIF disclosures move names in and out, live in our BIST Katilim indices explainer, and the screening standard itself in the 33/33/5 guide. The full equity shelf is on our investing page.
Frequently asked questions
Do dividends work differently between the two?
Z30KP tracks the total return index, so dividends accrue in the NAV rather than paying out; you receive them as price appreciation. KPC handles dividends inside the fund per its rules. Neither gives you a dividend income stream; investors wanting distributions should look at KT Portfoy's dividend-paying participation funds instead.
Is one of them more halal than the other?
No. Both draw from the same TKBB-screened universe with the same 33/33/5 thresholds verified through the same quarterly disclosures. The governance difference is visibility, not validity: KT Portfoy publishes its five scholars with biographies while Ziraat's committee works unnamed in the fund rules. If named oversight matters to your threshold, that is a legitimate reason to prefer KPC or RBH; the underlying stocks pass the identical screen either way.
Compare providers in your region
See side-by-side comparisons of Shariah-compliant products, or let our matcher recommend the best options for your situation.
How much Turkish equity should a halal portfolio hold?
There is no universal number, but the framing helps: screened Turkish equity is a single-country, bank-excluded, industrially concentrated slice of world markets, and it should be sized like one. Savers with decades of horizon can reasonably run it as their growth engine alongside foreign-screened exposure through funds like KTJ; savers near goals should let lease certificates and metals carry more weight. What no one should do is hold only Turkish equity because it is the exposure that happens to be easiest to buy.