Turkish banking sector posts Q1 profits of $3.5B

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA (AA) - The Turkish banking sector posted a 13.9-billion-Turkish lira ($3.54 billion) net profit in the first quarter of 2018, according to the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) on Thursday.

From January to March, the net profit of the sector recorded a 5.1 percent rise year-on-year, compared to the 13.2 billion Turkish liras ($3.65 billion) in net profit during the same period last year.

The banking watchdog said the total assets of Turkey's banking sector amounted to 3.37 trillion Turkish liras ($856 billion), with an annual increase of 17.7 percent, as of March 2018.

Loans given by banks -- the biggest sub-category of assets -- stood at around 2.2 trillion Turkish liras ($557 billion) at the end of March -- indicating a 20 percent hike on a yearly basis

Deposits held at the country's banks amounted to 1.8 trillion Turkish liras ($451 billion) as of March, marking a yearly rise of 17 percent.

The banking sector's regulatory capital to risk weighted assets ratio -- a significant indicator to figure out minimum capital requirements of lenders -- was at 16.56 percent in March, up from 16.04 percent in March 2017.

According to the BDDK figures, the ratio of non-performing loans to total cash loans -- another crucial indicator that shows how healthy the banking sector is -- was 2.90 percent as of March this year, showing an improvement by falling from 3.21 percent in the same month of 2017.

In Turkey, nearly 50 state/private/foreign lenders, including deposit banks, participation banks, development and investment banks had more than 11,500 domestic and overseas branches with nearly 208,000 employees as of March.

Last year, the Turkish banking sector's net profit hit an all-time high, reaching around 49 billion Turkish liras ($13 billion) -- a yearly increase of 30.8 percent.