Halkbank records YTL 640 million net profit in H1
Posted by meb at August 15th, 2008
Halkbank, Turkey’s second largest public bank after Ziraat, achieved a 30 percent jump in net profit in the first half of 2008 over the same period a year ago, for a total YTL 640 million.
Speaking in İstanbul at a press conference to disclose the bank’s recent financial statements, Halkbank General Manager Hüseyin Aydın said the bank achieved 19.7 percent in deposits, far exceeding the sector average of 13.2 percent for the same period. Halkbank also surpassed the rest of the Turkish banking industry in the first half in terms of asset growth over the previous year, he said, noting that Halkbank increased its assets by 14.4 percent against the sector average of 8.2 percent. The bank has YTL 46 billion in assets.
Turkey’s public banks, and Halkbank in particular, were recording significant losses prior to the 2001 financial crisis due to mismanagement and excessive political intervention in bank operations. The public banks were usually portrayed as hunchbacks on the country’s economy. However thanks to the steps to rescue them from the influence of politicians and from the position of being sponsors of government policies, these banks began to make profits. Halkbank has opened 22 new branches since the beginning of the year, growing despite economic ambiguities due to a then-pending closure case against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party). It now has 612 branches around Turkey, and it already has completed preparations to open 35 new ones.
Halkbank is in the Privatization Administration’s (ÖİB) portfolio. The government has a sound commitment to getting the state completely out of the banking business by selling all public banks to private finance giants. But since these public banks are too big for domestic private banks to swallow and since there is resentment against the rising share of foreign banks, which have the ability to buy out public banks, no firm decision on the method of selling these banks has yet been reached.
Aydın also noted at the press conference that they had achieved almost all the targets they set for the first half. “We had aimed to bring our bank to a more competitive line in all operational fields,” he added. He also underlined that Halkbank is extending half of its deposits as loans, which he identified as a big success considering that this rate was near 20 percent five years ago. The bank was largely financing the Treasury by purchasing great sums of T-bills, thus it was drawing the bulk of its revenue from interest. “Now we are knocking on customers’ doors to deliver loans. This is definitely a great change and transformation for Halkbank,” he said.
source: Today’s Zaman
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