Turkish finance sector

Turkey's finance sector's assets, including the Central Bank's, had climbed 21 percent as of March, compared to the same period last year, according to official figures.
The sector's asset size reached YTL 844.6 billion in March, the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency, or BDDK, revealed Tuesday in its ninth three-monthly Financial Markets Report.
The proportion of total assets of the financial sector to gross domestic product was 95 percent, according to the report, which shows the figure at 71.3 percent for banks.
In terms of structural indicators, the banking sector kept on growing in the first quarter of this year, just as the same period of last year. The banks had 8,378 branches, 173,075 staff and 19,500 ATMs as of March, the BDDK said in the report.
The total assets of the banks amounted to YTL 634 billion, according to the report. The share of loans in total assets rose, while the decline in the share of securities continued. (more)