Albaraka Turk is one of the four main Islamic banks in Turkey. It is part of Bahrain-based Al Baraka Banking Group but has an independent listing on the Borsa Istanbul too. Until this year, the Turkish bank had never accessed the debt capital markets, funding its impressive growth primarily through the bank financing market, complying with Islamic principles and subject to sharia law.
“As an Islamic bank, we are restricted in our access to funds, particularly long-term finance. We have been funding ourselves by opening branches and taking in deposits and we have used the banking market but we wanted to tap the capital markets too,” says Ayhan Keser, executive vice-president at Albaraka Turk.
