Every other brokerage in Turkey will execute any order you send and leave the religious consequences to you. Kuveyt Turk Yatirim is the one that will not: buy orders on its TradePlus platform execute only for shares meeting the BIST Katilim screening rules, roughly 240 eligible names at our August 2026 review, and a non-compliant buy simply does not go through. That single design decision, moving compliance from the investor's willpower to the order router, is why this firm exists and why it has no like-for-like competitor.
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The facts
Kuveyt Turk Yatirim Menkul Degerler received its SPK activity permit on July 11, 2024, as Turkey's first participation-based brokerage, 100% owned by Kuveyt Turk. Account opening, custody and account maintenance are all free; trading commissions are volume-based per the published tariff. Onboarding happens by video call through the TradePlus app or at any Kuveyt Turk branch acting as agent, which gives a one-year-old brokerage a nationwide physical network most fintechs would kill for. Services span equity brokerage, investment advisory, corporate finance and IPO intermediation with participation screening.
How the screen actually works
The screening logic is the TKBB standard, the same 33/33/5 rulebook that governs every katilim fund and index in Turkey: excluded core businesses (interest-based finance, alcohol, gambling, pork, tobacco, weapons, forward gold and FX dealing, impermissible media), interest-bearing debt below 33% of the greater of total assets or market value, interest-earning assets below the same 33% line, and impermissible income below 5% of revenue, verified through quarterly KAFIF disclosures. We explain the full mechanics in our screening standard explainer.
The asymmetry is the clever part: sells are unrestricted. If you arrive with a legacy portfolio full of bank shares, you can unwind it cleanly through the same account. And when a name drops out of the Katilim index at a quarterly review, you can exit it. The design acknowledges reality: halal portfolios are built over time, from imperfect starting points.
What it refuses to do
- No margin lending. You trade with money you have, which is a fiqh feature and a trader limitation in one.
- No short selling and no VIOP derivatives in the participation offering.
- No international markets. Halal Nasdaq exposure still means a katilim fund like KTJ or a foreign brokerage with your own screening.
- No brokerage-level retail sukuk shelf; direct lease certificates run through the parent bank's investment account instead, covered in our sukuk buying guide.
We list these without complaint. A participation brokerage that offered margin and shorting would be failing at its one job. But stock pickers should know exactly what they are signing up for: Turkish equities, cash-funded, long only.
The two honest gaps
First, pricing requires a tariff lookup. Zero fixed costs is a genuinely strong offer for small portfolios, but the volume-based commission schedule should be a headline number, not a document hunt. Second, governance is group-level: the Kuveyt Turk advisory board approves the product universe and the bank publishes the screening criteria, but the brokerage publishes no standalone scholar roster of its own. For an entity whose entire value proposition is enforced compliance, entity-level disclosure would close the loop.
Who should use it
TradePlus is for stock pickers who want compliance enforced by the platform rather than by discipline. If you just want screened Turkish equity exposure, the Z30KP ETF at a published 0.50% through any brokerage does that job with less effort, and pairing the two is the natural setup: Z30KP for beta, TradePlus for your active picks from the same screened universe. The active versus passive question deserves an honest answer before you commit either way. Browse the wider market on our investing page.
Frequently asked questions
What happens to a stock I own if it fails the screen at a review?
The compliance list updates with index review periods. Your existing holding does not vanish, and sells are always unrestricted, so you exit on your own schedule. The platform will not let you add to the position with new buys. Most committee guidance favors exiting within a reasonable period; fund managers facing the same event sell as part of index tracking.
Are the roughly 240 screened names enough to build a real portfolio?
Yes, with a caveat. The screened universe spans industrials, aviation, retail, telecoms and holding companies, plenty of breadth for a diversified Turkish equity book. What it excludes is the banking and insurance complex, a large share of BIST's total capitalization, so a screened portfolio behaves differently from mainstream indices: it decouples from Turkish financials entirely. That is not a bug; it is what you asked for.
Is there a minimum to open an account?
No minimum, and account opening, custody and maintenance are free. The economics that used to make small halal portfolios impractical are gone; commissions per the volume tariff are the only trading cost.
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 does TradePlus compare with just buying katilim funds?
Different jobs. A fund (KPC, RBH, ZPE) or the Z30KP ETF delegates stock selection and handles screening exits automatically inside the wrapper, for a management fee. TradePlus gives you direct ownership of individual screened shares with no ongoing fee at all, but selection, sizing, diversification and exit discipline when names leave the index are entirely your work. Honest self-assessment decides this: if you have never run a stock portfolio through a full Turkish market cycle, start with the index exposure and use TradePlus for a small active sleeve while you learn what kind of investor you actually are.