CEO's Message

Dear Stakeholders

Türkiye is reaping the fruits of a fiscal policy that stimulates the private sector and supports businesses in their new decisions. In the economies that have lost their growth momentum, the unemployment caused by recession is pushing the youth to the brink of despair and reducing the risk appetite of entrepreneurs, causing a shrinkage in all areas. However, with an upward growth trend, the Turkish economy provides significant advantages over many countries.

The drop in the youth unemployment rate (ages 15-24) indicates that businesses’ need for young recruits persists and their future expectations are improving more than before. In addition to the high employment rate, indicators for investments, production, and exports are also positive, ushering in a period of financial balance for all segments of the business world, especially for tradespeople, artisans, and SMEs. These improvements were reflected on the employees’ remuneration with the minimum wage regulation made in July, enabling increased welfare under the leadership of the public authority.

Taking firm steps toward becoming one of the top centers for global trade, Türkiye has become a safe harbor for many countries experiencing regional problems. Along with the new records achieved by our businesses in the exports of industrial products, the growth trend has been successfully maintained with a relatively busy tourism season. We believe that the economic vitality will be sustained in the last quarter of the year thanks to the continued and increased support provided to the real economy.

It is our greatest goal to set off in the new century of our Republic with a brand new ideal for Türkiye where Turkish businesses gain further competitive power and promising new enterprises burgeon across the country. We continue making our preparations to create an environment for 2023 where the national economy develops, inflation regresses significantly, and investments persist at the current rate. The government’s guiding steps in the upcoming period will rebrand the Century of Türkiye as a new approach in economic development on a global level.

Within the scope of these goals, in this period, our Bank carried out significant efforts to empower and encourage all entrepreneurs, especially women and young people. Productive Women Meetings continued in Diyarbakır, Kocaeli, Rize, Erzurum, Bolu and Van with an increased number of participants and endless energy. Through these events, we have achieved our goals of informing the entrepreneur candidates about our financial opportunities, hearing from active female entrepreneurs, and identifying their needs to help them develop their businesses. We also strengthened our collaboration with women’s cooperatives, which engage large numbers of women and remain essential for regional development. The Productive Women Academy has now more than 130 videos to offer informative content for entrepreneurs.

With the Women Entrepreneurs Loan Package, our Bank has reached 147,000 women entrepreneurs all over Türkiye since the offering of the loan. Reaching up to 19,1 billion Turkish lira, the total loan volume is a solid indicator of our country’s strong economy.

We have completed the initial preparations for the second Productive Women Competition, which we launched last year to support female entrepreneurs and contribute to the development of women’s cooperatives. The competition was announced in October with an award ceremony planned for March 8, 2023, International Women’s Day. Our Bank will hand out cash and in-kind prizes in the “Zero Waste” category as well as “Micro Producer,” “SME Producer” and “Women’s Cooperatives” categories.

With the innovative products we have prepared for young people to ensure that they have a strong presence in business life, we appeal to entrepreneurs who are university graduates, lack professional work experience in their respective fields, and want to start or have already started their own businesses in their fields. We continue to stand by our entrepreneurs with our “Genç (Young),” “Cesur (Brave),” “Usta (Master),” “Tekno (Techno),” “Halk (People),” and “Esnaf Girişimci (Tradespeople Entrepreneur)” loans. With this wide range of products, our Bank has enabled 64,000 entrepreneurs to benefit from a support of 12.3 billion Turkish lira.

In line with our traditional mission, we continue to bolster our support for tradespeople and artisans, who are among the pillars of our economy. As Halkbank, we are one of the organizations who best know the needs of the two million tradespeople and artisans working in Turkey. We continue to produce solutions for these needs in line with the approval of our President. Accordingly, we will provide our tradespeople with the opportunity to benefit from a new loan package worth 100 billion Turkish lira. The loans we will extend with a maturity of 60 months at an interest rate of 7.5 percent will benefit our country’s economy.

Prioritizing the adaptation of our tradespeople to digital developments and next-generation practices, our Bank supports the “Tradespeople and Artisans Go Digital” training project carried out with the collaboration of the Istanbul Chamber of Advertising Tradespeople and the Istanbul Union of Chambers of Tradespeople and Craftspeople. As part of this project, our tradespeople receive training on different subjects such as public relations, marketing, and digitalization, enabling them to take stronger steps towards branding.

Our bank established a Metaverse Department to better utilize its digital knowledge in banking operations. We also launched a Metaverse Branch and activity center. In the metaverse, we assigned three robot avatars to respond to client requests. In this initial version of the metaverse, users will be able to inquire about banking transactions from our specially designed robot avatar personnel. We will also soon launch other tailored applications. We will maintain our efforts to accelerate our bank’s adaptation to new technologies and to make our presence in the metaverse permanent.

In the first nine months of 2022, the number of tradesmen using loans has increased by 42 percent year-on-year, and the amount of provided loans has risen by 128 percent. Having extended 33.2 billion Turkish lira in loans to tradespeople at the end of the last year, our Bank’s support reached 46.2 billion Turkish lira at the end of the third quarter of 2022. The tradespeople loan balance of our Bank, which reached 79.9 billion Turkish lira at the end of last year, increased to 97.5 billion Turkish lira in the first nine months of the year. Excluding retail loans, the share of SME loans in cash loans stood at 51 percent, as Halkbank continued to be Turkey’s leading bank in SME loans.

Having achieved a major milestone in the second quarter of the year by increasing its asset size to over 1 trillion Turkish lira, our Bank has further grown its asset size to 1 trillion 222 billion Turkish lira at the end of the third quarter with a year-on-year increase of 68.7 percent. Over the same period, our total deposits reached 905.7 billion Turkish lira with a 69.4-percent increase, and our total loans hit 1 trillion 25 billion Turkish lira with a 70-percent increase.

We are aware that this financial success comes with great responsibility. Therefore, we continue to work for a greener, cleaner, and healthier world. We assume a pioneering role in the Turkish banking sector and remain determined to introduce exemplary practices. Our Bank has committed to harmonizing all its operations with net-zero emission targets by 2050 in line with the Paris Climate Agreement and has joined the Net-Zero Banking Alliance convened by the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative. As a step forward in the same direction, Halkbank became the first Turkish bank to commit to becoming “Net Zero” both in its direct operations and for its portfolio emissions as part of the Science Based Targets Initiative, which was launched in partnership with the United Nations Global Compact for companies to declare their science-based carbon emission reduction targets. Therefore, Halkbank has reaffirmed its dedication to adopt scientific methods in the fight against global climate change.

In the third quarter, we once again showed that we do our job with love and consider the future of our country in every step we take. Our esteemed investors, we appreciate your support in making us one of the most valuable institutions in our country, and as the Halkbank family, we are grateful for your cooperation and trust in our Bank.

Sincerely,

Osman Arslan
CEO