Fethiye and Hisaronu have a new one stop shop to make all of your household bill payments.

Fethiye Times is always interested when someone comes along with an idea to make life easier for us so we were very interested when we heard of the new The Fatura Bank opening in the area. So last weekend we popped into one of the Fethiye branches to find out what they have to offer.

The manager, Ramazan Karpuz, explained that The Fatura Bank is a new way for people to pay all of their household bills in one convenient location – water, electricity, telephone bills, Digiturk, traffic fines, car tax and credit cards. Just pop into the Fatura Bank with your bills and make the payment and they will supply you with a receipt. A 1YTL flat commission charge is payable on each bill.

We asked Ramazan, considering the flat fee, whether people would find this service cost effective. He said they would if they think about the amount they pay in dolmus fares or petrol and parking fees to go all around town paying the bills – TEDAS, Belediye, Bank and the Maliye. Not only this, he said, think of all the time spent queuing in each of the offices and the hassle of queue jumpers and people will soon find our commission charge excellent value. He also said another benefit of their service is that people can pay overdue bills and make payments on a Saturday, which is something the main banks don’t offer.

We think this is potentially a great service if you don’t have a bank account and want to pay all your bills in cash. But even if you do have a bank account, bills such as the water and traffic fines can’t be paid through your bank. It’s really then a matter of deciding if the journey to the local relevant office (Maliye, Belediye) to pay these bills is worth the time and cost over the commission charge.

The Fatura Bank has three branches in the local area:

• Hisaronu – A newly opened branch – located near to the new council building on the right hand side of the road going into Hisaronu - Hisarönü Mah. Cumhuriyet Cad.
  No: 6/B
• Fethiye Centre – Opposite the Mosque/Dolmus stop near to Turk Telekom shop.
• Fethiye Tuzla – On the Maliye roundabout next to the 24 Hour Market in the direction of Calis.

Branches are open from 8:30 – 18:30 Monday to Friday and 9:30 to 18:30 on Saturday. Closed Sunday.

For more details (in Turkish) visit the Fatura Bank website here.