Turkey's 2023 digital banking wave produced two licensed participation banks, and they could hardly have chosen more different strategies. Hayat Finans competes on printed numbers: the sector's best FX split, its highest TL tier, zero fees in the tariff. TOM Bank competes on physical reality: thousands of A101 grocery stores as a free cash network, and a published Shariah certificate per product. Both earn top-tier grades in our Halal Money Index (Hayat an A, TOM an A- with the rate-not-published flag). Which one belongs in your pocket depends on a short list of questions about how your money actually moves.
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Head to head
| Feature | Hayat Finans | TOM Bank |
|---|---|---|
| Backer | Hayat Holding (industrial group) | Aydin Holding / A101, with Dubai Islamic Bank on the board |
| Live since | August 2023 | 2023 (license March 2023) |
| TL deposit headline | Avantajli tier at 99 percent, engagement-maintained | In-app reference rates from past distributions |
| FX split | 70/30 printed, sector's best | In-app only |
| Rate disclosure | Printed public tables | In-app only, plus published icazet |
| Cash access | None, transfer-only | Free at A101 stores nationwide |
| Daily money | Standard tenors from 32 days | Mega Gunluk daily account |
| Credit | Bana Bunu Al to 50,000 TL, zero fee; education financing | Installments to 24 months at group stores; Hadi Black card |
| Gold | No shelf found at review | No shelf |
| Home/vehicle financing | None | None |
The four questions that decide it
- Does cash enter or leave your life weekly? If yes, TOM wins immediately. Hayat has no cash rails at all; TOM's A101 network is free and everywhere. This single question settles it for most cash-earning households.
- Are you parking meaningful savings? If yes, Hayat wins. The 99 percent Avantajli tier (even its 90 percent Bronz floor), the printed 70/30 FX split and public ratio tables beat TOM's in-app reference rates, which competed below those headlines at our review.
- Do you hold dollars or euros? Hayat, without hesitation. Its printed 70/30 is the only respectable published FX split in the sector.
- Do you want to verify compliance on paper? TOM's per-product icazet is the only product-level Shariah certificate in Turkish banking. Hayat's governance is strong too, its committee chair formerly ran the BDDK's participation banking department, but TOM shows you the certificate itself.
Why both exist: two theories of digital banking
The two banks were licensed within weeks of each other in early 2023, with identical 1.5 billion lira capital bases, and then built for different Turkeys. Hayat Holding is an industrial exporter, and its bank reads like a treasury product: maximize the yield on money that arrives digitally and stays digital. Aydin Holding is a discount retailer serving cash-heavy households, and its bank reads like retail infrastructure: remove every fee and every barrier between a shopper and a bank account, then let the store network do the physical work. Neither theory is wrong, and their grades in our index reflect execution rather than strategy: both cleared the bar that matters most, printed or verifiable participation terms under credible committees, in their first three years of operation. The sector's incumbents took decades to reach comparable disclosure.
What neither bank can do
Neither finances homes or vehicles, neither runs a gold participation shelf, and neither replaces a branch bank for big-ticket life events. Hayat's retail credit stops at 50,000 lira needs financing and education plans; TOM's stops at 24-month installments inside its merchant network. If a mortgage-scale purchase is anywhere in your two-year plan, you will be dealing with the big six regardless, so the digital account is a complement, not a replacement. The realistic setup for most readers is a pairing: one digital bank for daily money and yield, one branch bank for financing, gold and everything physical. Our home financing and car financing pages compare the branch banks' shelves; the gold roundup covers the gram question these two ignore.
The fine print differences
Hayat's engagement condition deserves respect: the 99 percent tier is maintained by active app usage, drops to 90 without it, and the tier structure was revised in May 2026, proof that conditioned pricing can change under you. TOM's equivalent caution is ecosystem gravity: its credit products run at group merchants (A101, English Home, Eve), which is convenient exactly to the extent your spending already flows there. And on disclosure hygiene, we flagged at crawl that Hayat's two site versions disagreed on long-tenor TL splits (90/10 versus 87/13), so check the in-app table before committing long money; TOM's numbers are in-app by design, so screenshot the reference rate you were shown at opening. Both banks print the TMSF 1.2 million lira insurance line, and both are supervised under the same BDDK 2019 communique as the big six.
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.
Our call
If you must choose one: cash-earning households and first-account openers should take TOM Bank, because cash access is binary, you have it or you do not, while yield differences are matters of degree. Savers with balances to grow and any FX exposure should take Hayat Finans, because printed splits compound and the FX gap against every alternative is enormous. But the honest answer for many readers is both, because the accounts are free and their strengths barely overlap: TOM as the daily hub with cash rails, Hayat as the yield engine with printed numbers. Then add one branch bank when property, cars or gold enter the picture. That three-account setup covers essentially everything Turkish participation banking currently offers a retail customer, and every piece of it is compared on our bank accounts page.