The last two years had been unforgettable for the business world and economic circles. We finished this hard period that deeply impacted the finance sector throughout the world, reaching our targets thanks to our powerful shareholding, our risk management policy we pursued determinedly, and programmed works.

The banks in the country having stopped new loans during the ongoing crisis for a while caused some unfavorable effects on the real sector. We believed we should stand by manufacturers and industrialists in this period and made our funds available to the real sector. Owing to loans we extended in accordance with the risk policies we put in place, we prevented hundreds of business closures, helped employees earn a living. We are happy, as we have fulfilled not only our banking function but also the requirements of our social responsibility principle in this period.

Despite unfavorable effects experienced in the banking sector throughout the world, we, as Türkiye Finans, achieved great successes. In 2009 our bank increased its assets by 22.46% vs. the previous year, to TL 8,700 million. Our Bank reached TL 6,882 million in funds collected, after a growth of 29.55%, while cash and noncash loans extended increased by 18.22% to TL 10,944 million. Our shareholders’ equity amounted to TL 1,194 million at end of 2009, posting a rise of 19.20% vs. the previous year.

We believe service network coverage is vital in the banking sector and thus continue opening new branches. In 2009 we opened 8 new branches, making the total 182. In parallel to new services and newly opened branches, as an indicator the importance we attach to our human resources 161 new members were added to the Türkiye Finans family in 2009.

We made various changes to our bank’s organization structure in 2009. With this transformation plan which we named “Breakthrough Project”, we will further improve our customer-oriented service approach. In the new period we will be able to provide our customers that we classified into four main segments of Commercial, Entrepreneur, Mass and Personal, with services more quality and designed for their requirements. At our branches we appointed a segment manager for each segment and required such managers to keep customer satisfaction at the maximum level.

Interest in interest-free banking is increasing throughout the world every passing day. Accordingly, new interest-free banking instruments must be introduced and existing ones improved in our country. Consequently we consider as great opportunities the Income-linked Notes (GES) issued by the Treasury last year. Most of such GES’ structured for being issued in two sequences was purchased by our bank. The creation of an active secondary market by attracting interest to Income-linked Notes from individual and institutional investors will help the Treasury reach a different investor segment through an effective borrowing instrument while rendering GES an actively traded product with high income potential for our bank.

We have been taking great steps towards the future as a result of the synergy we created with our primary shareholder, The National Commercial Bank (NCB) of the Saudi Arabian Government. NCB’s experience in international banking has brought us significant gains. Besides, our cooperation on Risk Management helps us do very successful works in this area, too. Owing to our continuous exchange of views on products offered to customers as two banks serving across different cultures and different geographies, I believe we will soon develop products beneficial to both Türkiye Finans and NCB.

Türkiye Finans continued to get in international markets the reward for its efforts, in 2009, too. We were selected as the “Best Participation Bank of Turkey” by the magazine Islamic Finance News in 2009. This international recognition makes us happy and motivates us to do much better things in the future.

On this occasion I would like to express my thanks to valuable shareholders, colleagues and customers for their contribution to our success and wish the new period to bring wellbeing to our country.

Sincerely,
Yunus NACAR
CEO