KT vs Albaraka vs Ziraat Portföy (2026): Halal Fund Managers Compared

Three managers run almost every interest-free fund (katılım fonu) a Turkish retail investor can buy. KT Portföy, the Kuveyt Türk subsidiary, is the largest and most complete, with a portfolio above 622 billion TL as of September 2026 and funds in every category from money market to foreign technology shares. Albaraka Portföy is the boutique, with assets above 200 billion TL, a gold fund that donates part of its fee, and white-label funds it runs for Emlak Katılım, Vakıf Katılım and Hayat Finans. Ziraat Portföy is a conventional manager with a nine-fund katılım range and the only katılım exchange-traded funds on Borsa İstanbul. Which one fits you depends on whether you want breadth, governance or the cheapest listed exposure.

The three houses in one view

Each manager publishes a different amount about itself, so the table uses only what was on their sites on 16 September 2026. Where a figure is missing, that is because the manager does not print it, not because it does not exist; the investing hub explains where fund documents live if you need to dig.

KT Portföy: the full shelf, with one fund for every job

KT Portföy's site groups its retail funds into seven families. Turkish lira funds for cash management include KLU, a participation money market fund rated 1 on the 7-point risk scale, and KTV, a short-term lease certificate (kira sertifikası) fund; on 16 September 2026 the site showed trailing one-year returns of 43.82 percent for KLU and 42.1 percent for KTV, with KTR, the first participation free fund, at 43.01 percent. Foreign currency funds such as KDL and KTT in dollars and KAV in euros let holders of hard currency earn without a deposit term. Multi-asset funds KCV and KTM, and the variable family KME, KDE, KUD and KUA from cautious to aggressive, are actively managed; the site describes them as Turkey's first participation variable fund family.

The equity side is where KT Portföy has no real competitor. KPC and KPU are domestic equity-intensive funds on the BIST Katılım index, KPA holds dividend-paying katılım shares and announced a profit distribution with KPD on 2 October 2026, and three thematic foreign equity funds cover technology (KTJ, 68.05 percent trailing one year on the site), energy (KNJ, 59.18 percent) and sustainability (KSR). Precious metals get KZL and KZU for gold, KUT for a metals mix and KGM, a silver fund basket. The site stresses that equity-intensive funds carry 0 percent withholding, that fund units bought before 8 July 2025 keep the withholding rate that applied when they were bought, and that its metals funds hold the metal without physical storage or a buy-sell spread for the investor. It also runs the ten katılım pension funds for Katılım Emeklilik, from KEA to KGC, and four venture capital funds.

Albaraka Portföy: governance, a charitable gold fund and other banks' funds

Albaraka Portföy's home page leads with two claims it can support: managed assets above 200 billion TL, and RBH, its katılım equity fund, offered at 0 percent withholding. Its shelf is narrower than KT Portföy's but covers the core: RBV, a short-term lease certificate fund rated 1 of 7, RBT, a longer lease certificate fund rated 4 of 7, RBK, a mixed participation fund at 5 of 7, PPG, a participation money market fund, CKF, a multi-asset fund, and dollar and euro free funds such as AL5, KSM, URD, MJE and KSL. The distinctive product is RBA, the Bereket Vakfı'na Destek gold fund, which donates 25 percent of the management fee it earns to the Bereket Foundation for young people's education; the site also lists real estate funds with a property register and a private portfolio management service.

What the fund list reveals is Albaraka Portföy's second business: it manages short-term participation funds for other participation banks under those banks' names. KAC is the Emlak Katılım short-term free fund, AL6 and VKI are Vakıf Katılım funds, HFY is the Hayat Finans short-term fund, and AL4 and RTI are Albaraka Türk's own. A customer of Hayat Finans buying HFY in the Hayat Finans app is therefore buying an Albaraka Portföy product, which is useful to know when you compare short-term funds across banks, something our short-term sukuk fund comparison does for KTV, RBV and ZPK. The provider page in our directory notes an advisory committee as the firm's distinguishing asset; the manager's site shows the fund list and prices but did not display committee details on the pages we fetched, so verify board names on the firm's own governance page.

Ziraat Portföy: a conventional house with the only katılım ETFs

Ziraat Portföy is not an Islamic manager. Its fund list on 16 September 2026 ran from conventional debt instrument funds and money market funds through dozens of free funds, and the firm manages interest-based products alongside its katılım range. That range is nonetheless real and clearly separated: nine funds in a Katılım Fonları category, namely ZPK (short-term lease certificates, TL), VFK (a second short-term lease certificate fund), HPV (a Halkbank-branded short-term lease certificate fund), ZPG (lease certificates, labelled SUKUK), ZPO (participation money market), ZPF (participation, FX), TCA (gold participation), ZBI (cautious participation) and ZCK (aggressive participation), plus katılım free funds such as ZK1 and ZK2 in dollars and euros. The site carries a dedicated İcazet Belgesi page for its compliance certificates.

The reason halal investors care about Ziraat Portföy is the exchange-traded shelf. ZGOLD is a gold participation ETF, Z30KP tracks the BIST Katılım 30 index, Z30KE tracks its equal-weighted version, and ZTLRK tracks the BIST TLREFK participation reference rate index, all tradable on Borsa İstanbul through any brokerage during the session rather than at a fund's next-day price. For a passive investor who wants the katılım index at a listed price, that is a product KT Portföy and Albaraka Portföy do not offer, and our active versus passive halal equity piece sets KPC against Z30KP in detail. The trade-off is governance: you are buying a screened index from a house whose other funds hold interest-bearing paper.

Lease certificates: the asset under all three

Strip the labels away and the TL cash products at all three managers hold the same thing: lease certificates (kira sertifikası) issued by the Treasury's asset leasing company and by participation banks, plus participation accounts. The Treasury's lease certificate programme is the sovereign anchor; KTV, RBV, ZPK, VFK and HPV are all short-term lease certificate funds that differ in which issuers they weight and what they charge. Because the underlying is similar, fees and the manager's sukuk sourcing decide the return gap, and none of the three home pages prints a management fee. The fee lives in the fund's prospectus and in its KAP disclosures, which our guide to finding katılım fund fees shows how to read.

• Short-term lease certificate funds: KTV at KT Portföy, RBV at Albaraka Portföy, ZPK, VFK and HPV at Ziraat Portföy; risk 1 of 7 at the two that print it.
• Participation money market funds: KLU at KT Portföy, PPG at Albaraka Portföy, ZPO at Ziraat Portföy.
• Longer sukuk funds: RBT at Albaraka Portföy (risk 4 of 7) and ZPG at Ziraat Portföy; KT Portföy covers the duration through its variable family instead.
• Gold: KZL and KZU at KT Portföy, RBA at Albaraka Portföy, TCA and the ZGOLD ETF at Ziraat Portföy.
• Domestic katılım equity: KPC, KPU and KPA at KT Portföy, RBH at Albaraka Portföy, Z30KP and Z30KE ETFs at Ziraat Portföy.
• Foreign equity and themes: KTJ, KNJ, KSR and KIK at KT Portföy only.

Tax, access and what none of them tells you

Withholding on fund gains changed in July 2025, and both KT Portföy and Albaraka Portföy market their equity-intensive funds at 0 percent withholding as a result. KT Portföy adds that units bought before 8 July 2025 keep their old rate, so an investor who sells old and new units of the same fund can face two tax outcomes. Albaraka Portföy's return calculator carries the honest small print: withholding is excluded because it depends on customer type and purchase date, the MKK fee is excluded, and past performance is no indication of the future. None of the three sites prints a management fee, an entry or exit charge, or a total expense ratio on its fund pages.

Access differs by house. KT Portföy funds are sold through Kuveyt Türk's channels and TEFAS; Albaraka Portföy's site walks a customer through Albaraka's mobile app, Yatırım İşlemleri, then Yatırım Hesabı Açma, then Fon İşlemleri; Ziraat Portföy's ETFs trade on Borsa İstanbul through any brokerage and its funds through Ziraat channels and TEFAS. TEFAS itself rejected our request on 16 September 2026, so we could not confirm per-fund platform availability that day; our guide to building a halal portfolio from one TEFAS account covers the mechanics. Albaraka Portföy's white-label funds are the exception to free movement: KAC, AL6, VKI and HFY are bought at the bank whose name they carry.

Who should choose which manager

Choose KT Portföy if you want one manager for everything: cash, dollars, gold, Turkish shares, foreign technology and a risk-graded variable family, with pension versions of most of it. It is the only house with foreign equity themes and the only one whose site prints trailing returns next to risk scores for every fund, which makes it the easiest to monitor. Choose Albaraka Portföy if governance and a smaller, curated shelf matter more than choice, if you want a gold fund with a charitable fee, or if you bank with Emlak Katılım, Vakıf Katılım or Hayat Finans and would rather hold the house short-term fund it runs for them. Choose Ziraat Portföy for ZGOLD, Z30KP, Z30KE and ZTLRK if you trade through a brokerage and want intraday pricing on a screened index.

Whichever you pick, do the two things the home pages do not do for you: read the fee in the prospectus and check the icazet or compliance document for the specific fund, not the manager. A katılım label on the fund name is a category under SPK rules, not a scholar's signature, and the three houses document their compliance in three different ways. Facts checked against ktportfoy.com.tr, albarakaportfoy.com.tr, ziraatportfoy.com.tr on 16 September 2026.

Frequently asked questions

Which is the largest halal fund manager in Turkey?

KT Portföy. Its site stated a portfolio above 622 billion TL as of September 2026 and described itself as the leader of interest-free portfolio management in Turkey, ten years after its founding as a 100 percent subsidiary of Kuveyt Türk. Albaraka Portföy stated assets above 200 billion TL. Ziraat Portföy does not publish a separate figure for its katılım range.

Is Ziraat Portföy a Shariah-compliant manager?

Not as a firm. Ziraat Portföy manages conventional debt, money market and free funds alongside a nine-fund katılım range and four katılım ETFs, and it publishes compliance certificates (icazet belgesi) for the katılım products on a dedicated page. Investors who want the whole house to be interest-free should look to KT Portföy or Albaraka Portföy; investors who want a listed katılım ETF have only Ziraat Portföy.

Do katılım funds pay withholding tax?

It depends on the fund type and when you bought. Both KT Portföy and Albaraka Portföy market their equity-intensive katılım funds at 0 percent withholding after the July 2025 change, and KT Portföy states that units bought before 8 July 2025 keep the rate in force at purchase. Other fund types carry withholding that Albaraka Portföy says varies by customer type and purchase date, so check the rate for your fund before selling.

Where can I buy KT Portföy, Albaraka Portföy and Ziraat Portföy funds?

Through the parent bank's app and through TEFAS for most retail funds; Albaraka Portföy's site describes the path inside Albaraka's mobile app as Yatırım İşlemleri, Yatırım Hesabı Açma, then Fon İşlemleri. Ziraat Portföy's ETFs trade on Borsa İstanbul through any brokerage. Albaraka Portföy's white-label funds for Emlak Katılım, Vakıf Katılım and Hayat Finans are bought at those banks.

What is the difference between a kira sertifikası fund and a participation money market fund?

Both are low-risk TL cash funds, rated 1 of 7 where the managers print a score. A short-term lease certificate fund such as KTV, RBV or ZPK holds mainly sukuk issued by the Treasury and participation banks; a participation money market fund such as KLU, PPG or ZPO holds very short instruments including participation accounts. KT Portföy's site showed 43.82 percent trailing one-year for KLU and 42.1 percent for KTV on 16 September 2026.

Does any manager publish its fund fees on its website?

Not on the pages we fetched. KT Portföy, Albaraka Portföy and Ziraat Portföy print fund names, risk scores and in some cases prices and trailing returns, but not management fees or total expense ratios. The fee is in each fund's prospectus and KAP disclosures, and Albaraka Portföy's calculator warns that its figures exclude withholding and the MKK fee.