Turkey’s Bank Asya closes 80 branches, cuts workforce by 1,708

ISTANBUL

Cihan Photo

Turkey’s embattled Bank Asya has said in a written statement to the Istanbul Stock Exchange that it has closed 80 branches, merging them with existing branches, and cut 1,708 jobs since the end of 2013.

The bank has been at odds with the government since last December, when a high-profile corruption probe into a number of former Cabinet ministers and officials began. The government accuses the movement of U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen, which has links to the bank, of concocting the investigations as part of a plot.

The bank made a 301 million Turkish Lira net loss in the first nine months of this year, down from a 60 million lira profit in the same period last year.

As of September this year, the bank had a total of 4,033 staff members and 281 branches.