Net profit of Turkish banks surges in Jan.

By Fatih Erkan Dogan

ANKARA

Turkish banking sector net profit surged in January, official data revealed on Wednesday.

The net profit of the Turkish banking sector was 3.7 billion Turkish liras ($973 million) in January, up 50.1 percent from same period of last year, according to data from the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency.

The capital adequacy ratio, a vital gauge of the health of a country’s banking sector, was 15.1 percent in the month, signaling the Turkish banking sector retained its resilience against shocks.

Assets also rose to 2.866 trillion Turkish liras ($759.9 billion), an increase of 135 billion Turkish liras ($358 million) or five percent from December of last year.

In January the largest assets class was loans with 1.804 trillion Turkish liras ($478.5 billion), up by four percent from the previous month while securities were at 364.5 billion Turkish liras ($96.6 billion), a 3.7 percent increase.

The biggest source of funds for banks, deposits, were up 3.2 percent from the previous month to 1.5 trillion Turkish liras ($398 billion).