Turkish banks see $7B net profit in December

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) – Turkiye's banking sector registered a net profit of 92.1 billion Turkish liras ($7 million) in December 2021, a banking watchdog revealed.

The total assets of the sector hit 9.2 trillion Turkish liras ($697.5 billion) at the end of last year, up 50.9% from 2020, said a report by the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BRSA) on Monday.

Loans, the biggest sub-category of assets, were around 4.9 trillion Turkish liras ($370.9 billion), posting a 37% rise year-on-year.

On the liabilities side, deposits held at lenders in Turkiye – the largest liabilities item – totaled over 5.3 trillion Turkish liras ($401.6 billion), up 53.5% from a year ago.

Shedding light on lenders' minimum capital requirements, the banking sector's regulatory capital-to-risk-weighted-assets ratio – the higher the better – was 18.34% by the end of December 2021, down from 18.74% in December 2020.

The ratio of non-performing loans to total cash loans – the lower the better – was 3.15% versus 4.08% in the same period of the previous year.

As of the end of 2021, a total of 53 state/private/foreign lenders – including deposit banks, participation banks, development and investment banks – were operating in Turkiye.

The sector had 202,136 employees serving through 11,098 branches both in Turkiye and abroad with 48,898 ATMs.