Banking sector net profit at $1.33 bln in January

ISTANBUL-Anadolu Agency

Turkey's banking sector posted a net profit of 7.9 billion Turkish liras ($1.33 billion) in January, the country's banking watchdog said on March 2.

The figure jumped 147 percent year-on-year in the first month of 2020, from 3.2 billion Turkish liras ($615 million) from the previous January, the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency data showed.

Total assets of the sector totaled 4.53 trillion Turkish liras ($760.7 billion), up 17.3 percent from January 2018.

Total banking sector loans – the largest sub-category of assets – soared 13 percent year-on-year to hit 2.68 trillion Turkish liras ($453.7 billion) in January.

On the liabilities side, deposits held at lenders in the country amounted to 2.59 trillion Turkish liras ($435 billion), up 26.3 percent during the same period.

The data showed that the sector's regulatory capital-to-risk-weighted-assets ratio – the higher the better – was 18.42 percent this January versus 17.12 percent in January 2019

Measuring the health of loans, the ratio of non-performing loans to total cash loans – the lower the better – stood at 5.34 percent in the month, up from 4.03 percent a year earlier.

A total of 50 state/private/foreign lenders – including deposit banks, participation banks, and development and investment banks – engaged in banking activities in Turkey as of January.

The sector employs 207,517 people at 11,563 domestic and foreign branches.