Turkish banks post $4.3B net profit in March

Turkish banks saw a net profit of 63.2 billion Turkish liras ($4.3 billion) in March, the country’s banking watchdog said on Friday.

Total assets of the Turkish banking sector reached to 10.2 trillion Turkish liras ($695.4 billion) last month, up from 4.9 trillion Turkish liras ($744.5 billion) a year ago, according to latest data from the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BRSA).

Loans, the largest sub-category of assets, amounted to 5.5 trillion Turkish liras ($376.8 billion) with a 90% year-on-year rise.

On the liabilities side, deposits held at lenders in Turkiye – the largest liabilities item – reached nearly 6 trillion Turkish liras ($409 billion), more than doubled from the same month of last year.

Pointing to lenders’ minimum capital requirements, the banking sector’s regulatory capital-to-risk-weighted-assets ratio – the higher the better – was 20.39% by the end of last month, up from 18% March 2021.

The ratio of non-performing loans to total cash loans – the lower the better – was 2.86%, down from 3.79% a year ago.

As of the end of March, a total of 54 state/private/foreign lenders – including deposit banks, participation banks, development and investment banks – were operating in Turkiye.

The sector had 201,597 employees serving through 11,104 branches both in Turkiye and abroad, along with 48,820 ATMs.