Turkish Lira Holds Devaluation Pace after TCMB Intervention

2026-03-03 11:47 By Andre Joaquim 1 min. read

The Turkish lira weakened to a record low 44 per USD in March, as the Central Bank of Turkey was forced to intervene in foreign exchange markets to maintain the predictable devaluation pace amid the outbreak of a war in the Middle East.

Traders noted that the central bank sold more than $8 billion in foreign exchange since the start of the month to prevent a slide in the lira as the global pivot away from riskier currencies drove the dollar to surge.

Markets sold liras despite expectations that the fresh inflationary risks from war in the region, especially due to a surge in energy prices, will drive the central bank to halt its rate-cutting cycle.

Additionally, the TCMB raised its overnight reference rate by 300bps to almost 40% to prevent a sharper lira selloff.

On top of that, confidence on the suspension of the rate-cutting cycle was attributed to a bounce in the headline inflation rate during February to 31.5%, its first increase since September.



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