About Fonkuşu

Fonkuşu is an independent, bilingual digital publication covering Turkey's fintech ecosystem, hedge funds, asset management, and capital markets. Our editorial voice is investigative, pointed, and occasionally irreverent: a credible watchdog for an industry that has largely operated without one.

The name is a Turkish wordplay: fon (fund) + kuşu (bird), evoking both "the fund bird" and the mythical phoenix. A watchdog that keeps circling back.

Our Mission

Turkey's fund industry manages trillions of lira on behalf of millions of retail investors. Many of these investors are navigating a financial system marked by high inflation, currency volatility, and a rapidly expanding universe of investment products. They deserve independent, rigorous reporting on the people and institutions managing their money.

Fonkuşu exists to provide that reporting. We scrutinise fund performance against benchmarks, examine fee structures, investigate conflicts of interest, and hold both regulators and market participants accountable. We are not a news aggregator, a market data terminal, or a PR channel. We are journalists.

Editorial Standards

Every investigation published by Fonkuşu follows strict verification protocols:

  • All claims are sourced to public records, regulatory filings, or named sources
  • Author disclosure statements are included with every article
  • Editor's notes describe source material for each investigation
  • Legal review is conducted prior to publication
  • Some articles are translated using machine translation and may not perfectly reflect the original language

Corrections Policy

Fonkuşu corrects errors promptly and transparently. Corrections are noted at the top of the relevant article with the date and nature of the change. If you believe we have made an error, contact us via ProtonMail or Signal.

Source Protection

Fonkuşu does not reveal confidential sources under any circumstances. Secure communication channels are available via Signal and ProtonMail. We encourage the use of encrypted communication for sensitive tips.

Team

Fonkuşu is operated by a small team of financial journalists and analysts based in Istanbul, Berlin, London and New York. For the security of our team members, individual identities are not publicly disclosed at this time. This is standard practice for independent investigative outlets.

Our team has collective experience in financial journalism, capital markets analysis, regulatory compliance, and data-driven investigative reporting. We read annual reports so you don't have to, though we think you should.

Funding & Independence

Fonkuşu is independently funded. We accept no payment from subjects of our reporting.

We carry no advertising from financial services firms that are current subjects of our coverage. Our editorial decisions are made independently of any commercial consideration. We believe that financial journalism can only function if it is financially independent of the industry it covers.

For inquiries about our funding structure or editorial independence, contact us via ProtonMail or Signal.