Turkish banking sector expands despite crisis
Posted by meb at November 24th, 2008
Numerous banks are dismissing employees to slash costs amid the global financial crisis, with some filing for bankruptcy, but the banking industry in Turkey is continuing to move forward without losing pace.
Figures from the Turkish Banks Association (TBB) indicate that the number of bank offices and branches throughout Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC) increased by 926 to 8,544, with the number of bank workers edging up to 170,425 — including 11,891 new recruitments — in the first nine months of this year. The only news overshadowing this healthy picture occurred when Akbank laid off close to 1,700 workers last week. Although Akbank has officially declined to confirm the dismissals, anonymous sources from the bank said the job cuts had nothing to do with the crisis but were taken as part of a wider restructuring plan.
As of September 2008, 8,489 of 8,544 offices belonged to depositing commercial banks, with investment and development banks using 55 offices. Public deposit banks occupied 2,393 offices, domestic private banks used 4,195 offices, foreign-owned banks had 1,950 offices and a deposit bank owned by the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF) finishes the figures with just one office. The Turkish banking industry is made up of 46 different banks. Thirteen of them are development and investment banks, three are owned by the state, 11 are private deposit banks, 18 are foreign deposit banks and one is run by the TMSF.
An interesting fact is that female workers exceeded the number of male workers in deposit banks as of the end of September. There were 82,623 women in these banks, with the number of male workers at 82,464.
source: Today’s Zaman
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