At a press conference held on Tuesday, Halkbank CEO Hüseyin Aydın announced that his company’s profits rose by 60 percent, much like the rest of the Turkish banking sector in 2009 -- though deviating greatly from the dismal performance of global, and especially US, banks during the global financial crisis.
According to Aydın’s presentation, the bank increased the amount of loans by 25.6 percent in 2009 over 2008, trumping the sector’s 6.9 percent overall growth in loans. A total of 26.3 percent of the sector’s total growth in loans was due to Halkbank’s loans, Aydın said. Halkbank extended TL 31.7 billion in loans in 2009, with retail and commercial loans rising by 33.6 and 29.7 percent, respectively. Halkbank boosted its share of total loans in the sector from 6.7 to 8.1 percent in 2009 and increased its share of personal loans from 4.8 percent to 5.8 percent.
Aydın noted that Halkbank grew its total assets by 18.7 percent in 2009, to reach TL 60.7 billion, with 50.6 percent made up of loans. Halkbank extended TL 2.5 billion in loans to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), an increase in share of total loans from 5.2 percent in 2008 to 7.6 percent.
Non-performing loans, a problem plaguing the Turkish banking sector despite their rising profits, also grew in number. Non-performing loans totaled TL 1.67 billion, a 33 percent increase from 2008. The percentage of non-performing loans also rose from 3.6 to 5.2 percent.
