Banking sector’s profit leaped 57 percent last year

ISTANBUL

The combined net profit of Turkish banks showed a strong 57 percent increase in 2021 from the previous year to reach 92 billion Turkish Liras, data from the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) have shown.

Local lenders’ assets grew nearly 51 percent, or by 3.1 trillion liras, last year to 9.2 trillion liras, the regulator said in a statement on Jan. 31.

Loans extended by banks increased by 37 percent in 2021 to amount to 4.9 trillion liras while the non-performing loans/total cash loans ratio stood at 3.15 percent at the end of December last year, improving from 4.08 percent a year ago.

Banks’ interest revenues on loans rose some 44 percent to 443 billion liras last year from 308 billion in 2020 while lenders’ net interest revenues grew around 24 percent to 266 billion liras.

Deposits collected by lenders exhibited nearly a 54 percent rise in 2021 compared with the previous year and amounted to 5.3 trillion liras.

The capital adequacy ratio across the banking industry was 18.34 percent as of end-December, declining slightly from 19 percent in 2020, the BDDK data showed.

There was a total of 52 lenders operating in the local banking sector last year with more than 11,000 branches in Turkey and 75 abroad. The industry employed 201,000 people last year, down from a little more than 202,000 personnel in 2020.

Banks reduced the number of ATMs they operate to 48,898 from 49,294.