Turkey: Banking sector net profit at $6.04B in Jan-Oct

By Yunus Girgin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey’s banking sector posted a net profit of 50 billion Turkish liras ($6.047 billion) in the first 10 months of 2020, the nation’s banking watchdog said on Monday.

The sector's net profit was up 21%, compared with 41.3billion Turkish liras ($7.3 billion) in the same period last year, according to the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK).

Total assets of the sector rose 44.3% year-on-year to some 6.23 trillion Turkish liras ($751.9 billion) as of the end of October, a Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BRSA) report said.

Loans, the biggest sub-category of assets, were 3.66 trillion Turkish liras ($441.4 billion), up 42.9% compared to the same period last year.

On the liabilities side, deposits held at lenders in Turkey – the largest liabilities item – totaled nearly 3.6 trillion Turkish liras ($433.5 billion), nearly a rise of 50% on an annual basis.

Pointing to lenders' minimum capital requirements, the banking sector's regulatory capital-to-risk-weighted-assets ratio – the higher the better – was 19.42% by the end of October, versus 18.49% in the same period of the previous year.

The ratio of non-performing loans to total cash loans – the lower the better – was 3.97% in the same period, versus 5.15% a year ago.

A total of 52 state/private/foreign lenders – including deposit banks, participation banks, and development and investment banks – conducted banking activities in Turkey as of October.

The sector had 204,653 employees, serving through 11,427 branches both in Turkey and overseas.