Last year was a record-breaking one for Turkey’s leading banks. Net profits for the four largest privately owned banks (which account for about 40% of assets) were up 15% at Tl9.44bn ($6.14bn) and return-on-equity was close to or more than 20% for many of the top players. With gross domestic product (GDP) rising 8.9%, growth prospects have come from all segments, says Tolga Egemen, executive vice-president at Garanti Bank, the third largest in the country by capital.
“A few years ago, we thought that our retail and SME [small and medium-sized enterprises] segments would grow faster than corporate lending, because we already had a big market share in corporate loans. But corporate lending has also grown quickly, thanks to high foreign direct investment, rising private equity activity and big project finance needs,” he adds.
