Turkey’s Garanti Bank profit rise to $461 mln

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Garanti Bank posted $461 million net profit in the second quarter of 2013. DAILY NEWS photo

The net profit of Garanti Bank rose 23 percent to 886.6 million Turkish Liras (around $461 million) in the second quarter of 2013, the Turkish lender has announced.

The Istanbul-based bank, which is partly owned by Spain’s BBVA and Turkey’s Doğuş Holding, was expected by market analysts to post lower figures. In the same period last year, its net income was 719 million liras.

With the announcement of the second-quarter figures, the bank’s net profit for the first half of the year is 1.89 billion liras, good for a 19.6 percent rise.

The bank managed to raise both its interest and non-interest revenues in the second quarter. Interest from income in the second quarter of 2013 was 1.7 billion liras, compared with 1.39 billion liras in the same period a year ago, Garanti said in a statement to the stock exchange.

Its non-interest revenues – commissions and fees – which were the basis of the Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s harsh criticism toward private banks, also surged by 32 percent to 629 million liras.
The bank’s commercial profit jumped by 69 percent, reaching 113.5 million liras.