CORRECTS - Turkish banks post $1.3B net profit in Jan-Feb

CORRECTS FIGURE IN HEADLINE

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's banks posted a net profit of 9.2 billion Turkish liras ($1.3 billion) in January-February, data from the country's banking watchdog showed on Monday.

The figure was down from 15.1 billion Turkish liras ($2.4 billion) in the same period last year, the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) said.

Total assets of the banking sector was over 6.1 trillion Turkish liras ($831.5 billion) as of end-February, a rise of 17% year-on-year.

Loans, the largest sub-category of assets, totaled at some 3.6 trillion Turkish liras ($490 billion), up 29% in the same period.

On the liabilities side, deposits held at lenders in Turkey surged by 25% from a year ago to 3.5 trillion Turkish liras ($470 billion) as of the end of last month.

Pointing to lenders' minimum capital requirements, the banking sector's regulatory capital-to-risk-weighted-assets ratio -- the higher the better -- was 18.17% by the end of this January, improved from 17.71% last February.

The ratio of non-performing loans to total cash loans -- the lower the better -- was 4.02% versus 4.11% in the same period in 2020.

As of the end of February, a total of 52 state/private/foreign lenders -- including deposit banks, participation banks, development and investment banks -- operated in Turkey.

The sector had 203,866 employees serving through 11,192 branches both in Turkey and abroad with 48,967 ATMs.