Turkish banks face problems in roll over

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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The global crisis is forcing the international banks that lend to Turkey to reduce their balance sheets and that will make renewing loans more difficult, Egemen said, according to the Istanbul-based newspaper.

Lower lending
Between $3.5 billion and $5 billion of the loans falling due next year could "evaporate," Egemen said, according to Milliyet. The result will be lower lending to companies in Turkey, he said.

In a separate note, Garanti Bank and Yapı Kredi Bank plan to cut back on new branches in 2009 as demand for credit drops, Bloomberg reported yesterday, citing daily Akşam.

Garanti plans to open 25 branches in 2009, compared with almost 250 in the past two years, Chief Executive Officer Ergun Özen told Akşam. The bank expects deposit growth of 15 to 20 percent, while the proportion of bad loans may rise by about 1 percentage point, he said. Yapı Kredi Chief Executive Officer Tayfun Bayazıt told Akşam that his bank will open 17 branches in the first two months of 2009. Yapı Kredi had targeted 1,000 branches by the end of next year, and will postpone this goal to an unspecified future date, he said.