Turkey's banking sector posts $8.4B net profit in 2019

The net profit of Turkey's banking sector totaled 49.8 billion Turkish liras ($8.38 billion) in 2019, the country's banking watchdog announced Thursday.

The banking sector's net profit was down 7% last year, compared with 53.52 billion Turkish liras ($10.16 billion) in 2018, according to the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BRSA).

Total assets of the sector surged 16.2% year-on-year to 4.49 trillion liras ($758.1 billion) as of end-2019.

Loans, the biggest sub-category of assets, amounted to 2.66 trillion liras ($448.5 billion), a rise of 11% on an annual basis.

Deposits held at lenders in Turkey -- the largest liabilities item -- totaled 2.6 trillion Turkish liras ($433.6 billion), jumping 26% from the previous year.

The U.S. dollar/Turkish lira (USD/TRY) exchange rate was around 5.94 as of Dec. 31, versus around 5.27 at the end of 2018.

Pointing to lenders' minimum capital requirements, the banking sector's regulatory capital-to-risk-weighted-assets ratio -- the higher the better -- was 18.43 by the end last year, up from 17.30% in 2018.

The ratio of non-performing loans to total cash loans -- the lower the better -- stood at 5.33% in the same period, versus 3.87% a year ago.

As of end-2019, a total of 51 state/private/foreign lenders -- including deposit banks, participation banks, and development and investment banks -- operated in the Turkish banking sector.

The sector had 204,626 employees, serving through 11,374 branches both in Turkey and overseas with some 49,204 ATMs.