Awards for Excellence 2009: Turkey

The battle between Akbank and Garanti Bank has dominated Turkish banking for a decade. Garanti’s focus on technology, infrastructure and a balance sheet that put customers rather than the government first has, in the past, given it the edge. However Akbank’s continuing investment in IT and customer relations management systems (for example, more than 82% of its retail clients are now electronic customers compared with 22% of Garanti’s), its push into the underbanked areas of Turkey and its response to the gathering economic storm have brought the contenders closer together. Garanti is still more profitable but Akbank’s return on assets is higher and elsewhere the bank is performing well: its net interest income grew by 22.5% and net fees and commissions grew by 25.5%.