Awards for Excellence 2008: Turkey

Despite the turbulence in global financial markets and growing political noise at home, Garanti Bank has continued to exhibit strong growth, which has secured it the best bank award in a fiercely competitive field. Thanks to its strong client focus, the bank secured the top spot in the cash and non-cash lending fields, extending a total of TL50 billion ($40 billion) of loans. Backed by the rapid expansion of its branch network – Garanti opened 105 new branches in 2007 – it attained the highest growth in total deposits, 30%, among its domestic peers and became the sector leader in foreign currency deposits. Garanti is firmly established as Turkey’s leading consumer and mortgage lender. Increased lending at healthy margins fed into a strong bottom line performance, with Garanti delivering the highest growth in net interest income as well as ordinary banking income. In 2007, Garanti more than doubled its net income to TL2.3 billion, giving it a 40% return on equity, almost twice the sector average of 22%. As well as impressing its nearly 6 million retail customers the bank has demonstrated the trust of international investment banks, recently securing a €600 million loan at a tightly priced all-in level of 67.5 basis points over Euribor.