Turkey: State-run lenders post $2.1B net profit in 2020

By Gokhan Ergocun

ISTANBUL (AA) - Three major conventional state-run banks in Turkey -- Ziraat, VakifBank, and Halkbank -- posted 15.43 billion Turkish liras ($2.1 billion) in net profit last year.

The banks' net profit rose from around 10.5 billion Turkish liras ($1.8 billion) in the previous year, according to data compiled by Anadolu Agency from unconsolidated balance sheets and the country's banking watchdog.

The total assets of state-run banks -- excluding state-run participation banks -- reached 2.22 trillion Turkish liras ($302 billion) by the end of December 2020, it was around 1.5 trillion Turkish liras ($250 billion) in the previous period.

The banks' pretax earnings were over 20.5 billion Turkish liras (some $2.8 billion) in 2020, while their deposits were 1.4 trillion Turkish liras ($190 billion) as of the end of last year.

Among the three banks, Ziraat saw the highest net profit with 7.82 billion Turkish liras ($1.06 billion). Its assets totaled 942.6 billion Turkish liras ($128.24 billion) as of the end of the year.

Vakif Bank's net profit was 5.01 billion Turkish liras ($681 million), while Halk Bank saw a net profit of 2.6 billion Turkish liras ($353 million) during the same period.

While Vakif's total assets amounted to 698.9 billion liras ($95 billion), Halk's total assets stood at 680 billion liras ($92.5 billion).

Loans, issued by these three banks, were 1.41 trillion Turkish liras ($190.55 billion) last year.

The banks' regulatory capital to risk-weighted assets ratio -- a significant indicator in determining lenders' minimum capital requirements -- was at 16.98% as of last December, up from 16.3% compared to December 2019.

The number of the three banks' domestic and international branches totaled 3,668 combined, employing 61,592 staff by the end of the same period.

Meanwhile, the Turkish banking sector -- including all types of lenders -- posted 58.5 billion Turkish liras ($7.92 billion) in net profits during the year.

The total assets of Turkey's banking sector amounted to 6.1 trillion Turkish liras ($826.5 billion).

The US dollar/Turkish lira exchange rate was 7.35 as of the end of the last year.