Garanti Bank to continue battle for market share

Turkey’s Garanti Bank further plans to expand its presence domestically and wants to take advantage of the current market conditions to gain ground on the lending segment.

“(…) We’re attracting deposits domestically, but the parent company is supporting us during this period as well. We have no financing problems, and in the following period we’re going to launch a lending campaign to develop our portfolio,” Murat Atay, who has been recently appointed to run the Romanian operations of Garanti, told ZF. Around two years ago, the bank embarked on an aggressive campaign to achieve growth on retail, after having kept a low profile for several years, focusing on the corporate customer area. Garanti is operating domestically through a subsidiary but is about to get a banking licence from the NBR. In late 2008, it had 450m-euro assets in Romania. Its customer portfolio soared, from a few thousands in 2007 to 50,000 last December, and should get to 150,000 at the end of 2009. “We target a 40% increase in assets this year,” Atay says. The bank is a small player for the time being, with a 0.5% market share, in the context where total assets in the system amounted to almost 79bn euros in late 2008. Atay says the loan portfolio’s quality is very solid, as the bank has embraced a cautious lending policy in the past. Still, he says the bank is ready to talk to customers facing trouble in paying instalments. Atay says business development is as scheduled. Amid the significant development investments, Garanti has registered losses in recent years in Romania. “According to the plan, we should step into the black in two years”.  Garanti Bank is owned by Turkish holding Dogus and GE Money, the financial investment arm of US General Electric giant. For the time being, group synergies are limited at collaboration on the segment of product distribution: GE Money’s sales force is promoting Garanti’s credit card. Garanti head says this collaboration may be expanded as the bank launches new products tailored on market demands. Bonus Card credit card will be the “star product” for Garanti as it is very good at attracting new customers.