Savings rise more than 25 percent in 2019

ISTANBUL

The amount of money kept in saving deposit accounts at local banks increased by 25.4 percent from 2018 to stand at 1.45 trillion Turkish Liras (around $241 billion) last year, state-run Anadolu Agency reported, citing data from the Turkish Statistics Institute (TÜİK) and the country’s banking sector regulator (BDDK).

TÜİK recently reported that the country’s population exceeded 83 million last year, rising around 1.4 percent from 2018.

Per capita saving on average, thus, amounted to some 17,394 liras in 2019, rising more than 3,300 liras from 14,000 a year earlier.

In Istanbul, the country’s commercial and business center, per capita savings on average was some 39,600 liras last year, up from 32,500 liras in 2018.

Istanbul, where 15.5 million people live, accounted for some 43 percent of all savings in the country. The money stashed in saving deposits at banks in this city amounted to 615 billion liras, which translated into a 25.4 percent increase from 2018.

The southwestern province of Muğla ranked second in terms of highest per capital saving with 25,560 liras, followed by the capital Ankara with 25,134 liras and İzmir, the country’s third largest city, with 22,712 liras.

In terms of total savings, Ankara followed Istanbul with 141 billion liras, while İzmir came third with 99.2 billion liras.

Per capita savings in the provinces of Antalya and Tunceli were also above the country average with 19,850 liras and 17,600 liras, respectively.

Data also showed that per capita savings in a total of 38 provinces exceeded 10,000 liras.

The southeastern province of Şırnak was at the bottom of the list with 2,280 liras of per capita savings, followed by Ağrı with 2,370 liras and Muş with 2,454 liras.

The amount of total savings in the province of Bayburt was only 441 million, which placed the city at the bottom of the list. Ardahan and Kilis followed Bayburt with 509 million liras and 592 million liras, respectively.