Turkish banking sector net profit up over 20 pct in January

ANKARA - Anadolu Agency

Turkey’s banking sector posted a 4.5 billion Turkish Lira ($1.2 billion) net profit in January this year, the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) said on March 9.

In January, the net profit of the sector recorded a 22.7 percent rise year-on-year, compared to 3.7 billion liras ($974 million) of net profit in the same month of last year.

The banking watchdog said the total assets of Turkey’s banking sector were 3.2 trillion liras ($868.7 billion) with an annual rise of 13.3 percent, as of January 2018.

Loans given by banks — the biggest sub-category of assets — stood at 2.1 trillion liras ($564.8 billion) at the end of January, marking a 17 percent yearly increase.

Deposits held at the country’s banks amounted to 1.7 trillion liras ($459 billion) as of January, indicating a 14.3 percent rise on a yearly basis.

The banking sector’s regulatory capital to risk weighted assets ratio — a significant indicator to figure out minimum capital requirements of lenders — was at 16.78 percent in January, up from 15.17 percent in the same month of 2017.

According to the BDDK figures, the ratio of non-performing loans to total cash loans — another crucial indicator that shows how healthy the banking sector is — was 2.95 percent as of January this year, showing an improvement by falling from 3.19 percent in the same month of last year.

In Turkey, nearly 50 state/private/foreign lenders, including deposit banks, participation banks, development and investment banks had over 11,500 domestic and overseas branches with more than 208,000 employees as of January.

Last year, the Turkish banking sector’s net profit hit its all-time high, reaching 49.1 billion liras ($13 billion) with a yearly increase of 30.8 percent.