Turkey: Banking sector net profit at $1.9B in Jan-March

ANKARA

Turkey's banks saw a net profit of 16 billion Turkish liras ($1.9 billion) this January to March, the country's banking watchdog said on Friday.

The figure rose from 15.3 billion Turkish liras ($2.3 billion) in the same period last year, the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BRSA) data showed.

Total assets of the banks neared 6.5 trillion Turkish liras ($786.7 billion) as of end-Mach, up 33% from last year.

Loans, the largest sub-category of assets, climbed 30% to some 3.8 trillion Turkish liras ($458.1 billion) during the same period.

On the liabilities side, deposits held at lenders in Turkey reached 3.6 trillion liras ($442.2 billion) as of the end of last month, up 30% year-on-year.

Pointing to lenders' minimum capital requirements, the banking sector's regulatory capital-to-risk-weighted-assets ratio – the higher the better – was 17.99% by the end of this March, improved from 17.90% last year.

The ratio of non-performing loans to total cash loans – the lower the better – was 3.79% versus 4.69% in March 2020.

As of the end of March, a total of 52 state/private/foreign lenders – including deposit banks, participation banks, development and investment banks – were operating in Turkey.

The sector had 202,841 employees serving through 11,185 branches both in Turkey and abroad with 44,288 ATMs.