Turkish banks post $5.8B net profit in January-November

By Tuba Sahin

ANKARA (AA) – Turkey’s banking sector registered a 75.3 billion Turkish liras ($5.8 billion) net profit as of the end of November, the country's banking watchdog announced on Wednesday.

The figure rose 31.4% from the same period last year, the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BRSA) data showed.

Total assets of the sector hit 8.95 trillion Turkish liras ($691.5 billion), up 46.2% year-on-year.

Loans, the largest sub-category of assets, went up 32% to 4.8 trillion Turkish liras ($369.9 billion) in the 11-month period.

On the liabilities side, deposits held at lenders in Turkey totaled nearly 5.2 trillion Turkish liras ($401.7 billion) by end-November, up 50% 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 17.79% as of the end of November, while it was 19.38% in the same period of previous year.

The ratio of non-performing loans to total cash loans – the lower the better – was 3.22% versus 3.97% last November.

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

The sector had 201,747 employees serving through 11,130 branches both in Turkey and abroad with 48,827 ATMs.