The banks were criticized for continuing to register big profits even at the peak of the global financial crisis to the detriment of small companies, which suffered from not being able to find enough funding to keep their businesses afloat. Doğan said the main reason for the banks' sustainable profitability was the difference between the fixed interest rates on formerly extended loans and the declining current interest rates. “Profitability continuing in this way is not sustainable,” he noted and said the banks would soon employ strategies to increase profits through conventional methods.
In the coming period, the banks will start feeling the pressure of expanding more and increasing profits, Doğan asserted and went on: “The first thing a bank must fulfill to grow its financial figures and profits is to remove the limits to loans and adopt a softer approach to the system. Therefore, I think there is a period coming in which banks will turn to face companies again.”
Speaking to Anatolia news agency yesterday, Doğan shared his prediction that interest rates will remain low in 2010 while the terms of lira deposits will be longer. In addition, liquidity will be more abundant in the year ahead, he argued. Doğan also anticipated that exchange rates will not fluctuate much.
He further commented on the possibility of signing a stand-by deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). For him, Turkey seems to have thwarted the economic crisis successfully, in a “fast and strong” manner without availing itself of an anchor from the IMF. “The IMF is a long-term insurance policy for a country like Turkey. We have subsisted during the harshest times without this policy document. Therefore, a catastrophic scenario is definitely out of the question,” he commented. Furthermore, he argued that it would be very unlikely for the government to sign a stand-by deal with the IMF when the worst is over and when the government is poised to face an election.
