Banks’ total assets reach $692 billion

ANKARA

The total assets of Turkey’s banking sector hit 8.95 trillion Turkish Liras ($691.5 billion), up 46.2 percent year on year, according to data released by the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) on Dec. 29.

Turkish banks’ net profits reached 75.3 billion liras ($5.8 billion) in the first 11 months of this year, up 31.4 percent from the same period last year, BDDK said.

Loans jumped by 32 percent to 4.8 trillion liras ($369.9 billion) in the January-November period.

The total equities of 53 state, private and foreign lenders - including participation/Islamic banks and development banks - increased by 14.5 percent to 686.7 billion liras ($54.2 billion).

Deposits held at lenders in Turkey totaled nearly 5.2 trillion liras ($401.7 billion) by end-November, up 50 percent year on year.

Pointing to lenders’ minimum capital requirements, the banking sector’s regulatory capital-to-risk-weighted-assets ratio was 17.79 percent as of the end of November, while it was 19.38 percent in the same period of the previous year.

The ratio of non-performing loans to total cash loans - the lower the better - was 3.22 percent versus 3.97 percent last November.

The sector has nearly 202,000 employees serving through 11,130 branches in Turkey and abroad with 48,827 automated teller machines.