Turkish banks post $5.6B net profit in January-July

Turkey's banking sector registered a net profit of 39 billion Turkish liras ($5.6 billion) as of the end of July, the country's banking watchdog said Tuesday.

Total assets of the sector hit 5.6 trillion Turkish liras ($809 billion), up 34.7% from the same period last year, a report by the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BRSA) said.

Loans, the biggest sub-category of assets, surged 35.7% year-on-year to 3.4 trillion Turkish liras ($486.5 billion) in the seven-month period.

On the liabilities side, deposits held at lenders in Turkey-the largest liabilities item-totaled nearly 3.2 trillion Turkish liras ($462.5 billion), up 42% on an annual basis.

Pointing to lenders' minimum capital requirements, the banking sector's regulatory capital-to-risk-weighted-assets ratio-the higher the better-was 19.21% by the end of the month, versus 18.19% in the same period of the previous year.

The ratio of non-performing loans to total cash loans-the lower the better-stood at 4.25% in the same period, versus 4.57% a year ago.

As of end-July, a total of 52 state/private/foreign lenders-including deposit banks, participation banks, and development and investment banks-operated in the Turkish banking sector.

The sector had 203,086 employees serving through 11,310 branches both in Turkey and overseas with 49,429 ATMs.