Financial Institutions in Turkey
HACETTEPE UNİVERSİTY
FACULTY OF ECONOMICS
AND
ADMINISTRATION SCINCE
DEPARTMENT OF
ECONOMİCS
INTERNATIONAL FINANCE
FINANCIAL
INSTITUTIONS IN
TERM PAPER
BY: ALTYNBEK USUPBAEV
9861215
ANKARA 2006
Financial Institutions in
Financial institutions are the parts of the financial system. The financial system is the complex structure, and every year it channels billions of dollars, euros, yens, Turkish liras from savers to people with productive investment opportunities. Financial institutions commonly separated as depository institutions and as non-bank institutions.
Our major target in this paper is to
have a wide look at financial institutions in
Non-bank Financial Institutions
Although depository institutions, or by other words banks are the financial institutions we deal with most often, they are not the only financial institutions we come in contact with. In such transactions like purchasing insurance from insurance company, or buying a share of common stock with the help of the broker, we are dealing with non-bank financial institutions.
The role of non-bank financial institutions is to transfer funds from lenders-savers to borrowers-spenders. In the time of technological progress, non-bank financial institutions innovate new services, and now compete more directly with banks by providing banklike services to their customers.
Insurance Companies: Every day we face the possibility of the occurrence of certain catastrophic events that could lead to large financial losses. Because these losses could be large relative to our financial resources, people found the solution by buying insurance coverage that will compensate the sum of money if catastrophic events occur.
Life Insurance Companies: The first
life insurance company in the
Life insurance company sells policies that provide income if a person dies and incapacitated by illness, or retire. Such companies are organized in two forms: as stock companies or as mutual companies. Stock companies are owned by stockholders; mutuals are technically owned by policyholders.
Because death rates for population as whole are predictable with a high degree of certainty, life insurance companies can accurately predict what their payouts to policyholders will be in the future. Consequently, they hold long-term assets that are not particularly liquid – corporate bonds and commercial mortgages as well as some corporate stocks.
There are two principal forms of life insurance policies: permanent life insurance (such as whole, universal, and variable life) and temporary insurance (such as term). Permanent life insurances policies have a constant premium throughout the life of the policy. In the early years of the policy the size of the premium exceeds the amount needed to ensure against death because the probability of death is low. Thus the policy builds up a cash value in its early years. But in later years the cash value declines because the constant premiums falls below the amount needed to ensure against death, the probability of which is now higher. Term insurance, by contrast, has premiums that are matched every year to the amount needed to ensure against death during the period of the term (for example one or five years). Hence term policies have no cash value, thus, in contrast to permanent life policies, provide insurance only, with no savings aspects.
Property And Casualty
Insurance Companies: Property and casualty insurance companies
specialize in policies that pay fro losses incurred as a result of accidents,
fire, or theft. Property and casualty insurance companies same as life
insurance companies separated both as stock and mutual companies, and regulated
by government. The investment policies of property and casualty insurance
companies are affected by two basic facts. First, because they are subject to
income taxes, the largest share of their assets is held in tax-exempt municipal
bonds. Second, because property losses are more uncertain than the death rate
in a population, these insurers are less able to predict how much they will
have to pay policyholders than life insurance companies are. The earthquake in Izmit in 1999 exposed the property and casualty insurance
companies to huge losses. Therefore, property and casualty insurance companies
hold more liquid assets than life insurance companies. Property and casualty
insurance companies will insure against losses from any type of events,
including fire, theft, negligence, malpractice, earthquakes, and automobile
accidents. If possible loss being insured is too large for any firm, several
firms may join together to write a policy in order to share the risk. Insurance
companies may also reduce their risk exposure by obtaining reinsurance.
Reinsurance allocates a portion of the risk to another company in exchange for
a portion of the premium and is particularly important for small insurance
companies. The most famous risk-sharing operation is Lloyd’s of London, an
association in which different insurance companies underwrite a fraction of an
insurance policy. In
Pension Funds: in performing the financial intermediation function of asset transformation, pension funds provide the public with another kind of protection: income payments on retirement.
There is an important increase in share of pension funds due to tax policy, because employer contribution to an employee pension plans are tax-deductive. Furthermore, tax policy has also encouraged employee contribution to pension funds by making them tax-deductible as well as enabling self-employed individuals to open up their own tax-sheltered pension plans, Keogh plans, and individuals retirement accounts (IRAs). Because the benefits paid out of the pension fund each year are highly predictable, pension funds invest in long-term securities, with the bulk of their asset holdings in bonds, stocks, and long-term mortgages. The key management issues for pension funds revolve around asset management: Pension fund managers try to hold assets with high expected returns and lower risk through diversification.
The structure of
pension funds in
Pension funds in
Beside this, pension funds are highly related with the trust. Households will not save their money in banks, pension funds, or other financial institutions if they have no trust to them. The government plays here an important role in protection household savings and regulating the structural work of financial institutions. The legal legislation, like FDIC increases the trust of people to the banks and others. As long as households trust to private pension funds they deal with them.
Many turkish banks also gives private pension fund services (Ak Bank- Ak Emeklilik), and outstanding increase in pension funds rate is also related to people trust to the turkish banking, as well as to the pension funds.
Finance
Companies: Financial companies acquire funds by issuing commercial
paper or stocks and bond or borrowing from banks, and they use the proceeds to
make loans (often for small amounts) that are particularly well suited to
consume and business needs. The financial intermediation process of finance
companies can be described by saying that they borrow in large amounts, but often
lend in small amounts- a process quite different from that of banking
institutions, which collect deposits in small amounts and often make large
loans. There are three types of financial companies in
1. Sales Finance Companies are owned by a particular retailing or a manufacturing company and make loans to consumers to purchase items from that company. Sales finance companies compete directly with banks for consumer loans and are used by consumers because loans can frequently be obtained faster and more conveniently at the location where an item is purchased.
2. Consumer Finance Companies make loans to consumers to by particular items such as furniture or home appliance, to make home improvements, or to help refinance small debts. Consumer finance companies are separate corporations, or are owned by banks. Typically, these companies make loans to consumers who can not obtain credit from other sources and charge higher interest rates.
3. Business Finance Companies provide specialized forms of credit to businesses by making loans and purchasing accounts receivable at a discount; this provision of credit is called factoring. Besides factoring business finance companies also specialize in leasing equipment, which they purchase and then lease to businesses for a set number of years.
Mutual Funds: Mutual Funds are financial intermediaries that pool the resources of many small investors by selling them shares and using the proceeds to by securities. Through the asset transformation process of issuing shares in small denominations and buying large blocks of securities, mutual funds can take advantage of volume discounts on brokerage commissions and purchase diversified holdings (portfolios) of securities. Mutual funds allow the small investors to obtain the benefits of lower transaction costs in purchasing securities and to take advantage of the reduction of risk by diversifying the portfolio of securities held. Many mutual funds are run by brokerage firms, but others are run by banks, or independent investment advisers.
Mutual funds have seen a large increase in their market share due primarily to the booming stock market. Another source of growth was the specialization of mutual funds in dept instruments.
Funds that purchase common stocks may specialize even further and invest solely in foreign securities or in specialized industries, such as energy or high technology. Funds that purchase debt instruments may specialize further in corporate, government, or tax- exempt bonds, or in long-term or short-term securities.
Mutual Funds are primarily held by households (around 80%) with the rest hold by other financial institutions and non financial businesses.
Banks
Depository institutions, or simply banks are the most important of all financial intermediaries and are generally the first place we go when we decide to borrow money to buy a car, or go to holiday.
Bank strategy simply is collecting small deposits and making big loans, and as all economic units pursues the goal to maximize their profits. Generally banks and Turkish banks as well have four primary concerns: the first is to make sure that the bank has enough ready cash to pay its depositors when there are deposit outflows, that is, when deposits are lost because depositors make withdrawals and demand payment. To keep enough cash on hand, the bank must engage liquidity management, the acquiring assets to meet the banks obligation to depositors.
Second, the bank must pursue the acceptably low level of risk by acquiring assets that have a low rate of default and by diversifying asset holdings. The third concern is to acquire funds at low cost, and finally they must decide the amount of capital they should maintain and then acquire the needed capital.
The banking sector constitutes a great part of the Turkish financial
system. Many of the transactions and activities taking place in both money and
capital markets are carried out by banks.
There are a number of factors that give banking its prominent role in the Turkish economy. These are:
-The economic structure peculiar to
-The choice to turn resources into long-term investments through the banks for the objectives targeted in the development plans and annual programs, and the establishment of banks by the state to finance certain sectors,
-Extensive application of continental European banking practices as a model in the legal structure of the banking system and
-The lack of a full-fledged capital market.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The development of the Turkish banking sector can be analyzed within six separate periods, which differ as to policy and method:
The Period of the Money-changers and the Galata bankers (pre-1847):
During this period, all quasi-banking activities were carried out by
money-changers. The Galata bankers consisted mostly
of the ethnic-minorities in
The Period of Foreign Banks (1847-1908):
Since the financial situation of the
Development of National Banking and Implementation of Etatism (1909-1944)
The years following the proclamation of the Second Constitution (1908) gave rise to the national banking movement, which was a reaction to foreign banking.
Twenty-four national banks were established in
In 1923, the first National Economic Congress held in
However, the adverse effects of the Great Depression on the
balance of payments and the lack of domestic capital called for a
government-supported economic development policy in subsequent years. As a
result of this policy, six state banks were established in the 1930s, including
the Central Bank of the
Development of Private Banks (1945-1960)
Despite the adverse effects of the Second World War, a significant rate of growth and industrialization was achieved with the support of the newly established state banks, which created a tremendous increase in capital stock of the private sector.
Beginning in the early 1950s, etatism weakened because of positive developments in the private sector, expansion of international cooperation and transition to a multi-party political system. A more liberal and private sector oriented policy was adopted in the following years, and as a result, more than 30 private banks were established by 1960.
Planned Development Period (1961-1979)
A new “planned development” policy was adopted in the beginning of the 1960s. According to this system, the state would administer the economy and issue recommendations to the private sector through five-year plans prepared by the government to cover all sectors.
As recommended in the plans, several development and investment banks were established to finance various sectors in the 1960s and 1970s such as the Tourism Bank (Turizm Bankası) in 1960, Industrial Investment Bank (Sinai Yatırım Bankası A.Ş.) in 1963, State Investment Bank (Devlet Yatırım Bankası) in 1964, and the State Industry and Worker’s Investment Bank (Devlet Sanayi ve İşçi Yatırım Bankası) in 1975.
Liberalization and Internationalization in Banking (post-1980)
A new liberal economic policy began to be implemented in January 1980, which aimed at integration with world markets by establishing a free market economy. As a reflection of this policy, the 1980s witnessed continuous legal, structural and institutional changes and developments in the Turkish banking sector. During these years, a series of reforms were adopted to promote financial market development. The main aim of these reforms was to increase the efficiency of the financial system by fostering competition among banks.
In this context, interest and foreign exchange rates were
liberalized, new entrants to the banking system were permitted and foreign
banks were encouraged to operate in
The Interbank Money Market, which is administrated by the Central Bank, was established in 1986 with the purpose of regulating liquidity in the banking system.
A uniform accounting plan and accounting principles as well as a standard reporting system were adopted in the same year. In 1987, the application of external auditing of the banks in accordance with internationally accepted accounting principles was started.
In addition, legal and institutional arrangements were introduced to foster the development of the capital market. As a result, banks began to provide additional services such as consultancy and trading in securities, underwriting fund management, establishing mutual funds and financial consultation.
Besides diversifying their services, banks improved their technological infrastructure by extensive use of computer systems; began employing more qualified human resources; and at the same time put an emphasis on training programs.
LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND SUPERVISION OF THE BANKING SYSTEM
Banks are institutions by which funds accumulating in the economy are collected and channeled to investors. This makes the public supervision of banks essential.
All banks in
With the establishment of the BRSA, the Savings Deposits Insurance
Fund (SDIF), which had been under the authority of the Central Bank, began to
operate under the administration of the BRSA. However,
with the enactment of Act No. 5020 on
The decision-making body of the Agency is the Banking Regulation
and Supervision Board (BRSB), which is appointed by the Council of Ministers
and consists of seven members. Following the appointment of the members of the
Board, the Agency commenced its operations as of
Banks in
The BRSA exercises its supervisory authority on a direct and ongoing basis through the Board of Sworn Bank Auditors who is responsible for on-site examination of the banks in terms of legal considerations and financial soundness. Additionally, the banks’ financial statements are audited by external auditors in accordance with internationally accepted accounting principles. Banks are also examined by their own auditors, who are required to submit quarterly reports to the BRSA.
Recently, the supervisory system has been further strengthened by legislative arrangements and a number of decisions taken in accordance with the standards of the prudential regulation exercised by the international banking community and in general covered the following banking related areas:
· Foreign exchange exposures,
· Capital adequacy,
· Internal control and risk management,
· Lending limits
· Conditions to be met by bank owners,
· Bank ownership control in transfer of shares,
· Consolidated and cross-border supervision of banks,
· Accounting standards for financial disclosure purposes,
· Prudential reporting and loan loss provisioning.
Moreover, during 2003 and 2004, several improvements have been realized in terms of regulative and legislative framework of the Turkish banking system;
· SDIF has been separated from the administration of the BRSA and its legislative framework has been renewed for the collection non performing loans from the debtors of SDIF banks.
· In July 2004, savings deposit insurance was limited to 50 billion TL (50 thousand New Turkish Lira (YTL), approximately 37.250 USD), which is expected to decrease the moral hazard effect.
· Risk based deposit insurance system has been settled.
· In order to increase intermediation costs, stamp duties and charges on loans were removed, deposit insurance premiums were decreased considerably and special transaction taxes on deposits were lifted. Furthermore the government has eliminated the Resource Utilization Fund on commercial loans.
· Accounting standards has been brought mostly in lines with International Accounting Standards.
Also some legislative changes and new targets are expected to realize in 2005;
· The new banking act, draft act on financial services, prepared by BRSA is expected to become into force. The draft act aims at setting a competitive environment, reducing the risks and bringing transparency in the banking sector.
· In order to improve the efficiency of supervision of the banking sector, risk based supervision model is being designed by BRSA.
· Given the recent technological innovations in financial sector more emphasis will be put into IT based audit systems.
· A new draft law on credit cards is being prepared by BRSA.
· It is expected that regulation and supervision power of non bank financial institutions to be transferred from Treasury of Turkey to BRSA
THE RECENT BANKING SECTOR RESTRUCTURING PROGRAM
Following the November 2000 and February 2001 crises, which had negative impacts both on the economy and the banking system, an extensive streamlining plan; Banking Sector Restructuring Program was started and announced to the public in May 2001 by the BRSA. The restructuring program was based on the following main pillars: (1) Restructuring of state banks, (2) Prompt resolution of SDIF banks, (3) Strengthening of private banks, and (4) Strengthening the regulatory and supervisory framework. Progresses achieved in these fields are presented below:
1) Restructuring of State Banks; Financial restructuring of state banks was completed, and correspondingly they began to make profits. Similarly, with the requirements of modern banking and international competition, significant steps have been taken within the framework of operational restructuring. Besides, the number of branches of the state banks which was 2,494 as of December 2000 was reduced to 2.236 as of December 2004; and the number of personnel which was 61,601 was reduced to 39.454.
2) Resolution of SDIF Banks; 21 banks were
taken over by the SDIF between 1997 and 2003. After the BRSA began to operate on
3) Strengthening the Private Banking System; Within the scope of the program focused on private banks, primary steps were taken towards strengthening the capital structures of private banks with their own resources and limiting market risks. 25 private banks were subjected to a three-phase audit process. Cash capital increases, correction of provisions set aside for non–performing loans, positive changes engendered in the market risk and valuation of securities were taken into account during these evaluations and accordingly, three banks were determined to have capital requirements. The capital requirements of these banks were provided either by their shareholders and or by the allocation of subordinated loans given by the SDIF upon BRSA decisions. With the improvement observed in profitability, the average capital adequacy ratio of the private banks was recorded at 28.2% as of December 2004.
4) Strengthening the regulatory and supervisory framework
Concurrently with the financial and operational restructuring of the banking sector, significant progress has been made in legal and institutional regulations. Within this context, regulations were issued to prevent risk concentration in loans, limit participation of banks in non-bank financial institutions and ensure preparation and disclosure of the balance sheets of the banks in compliance with international accounting standards. Among many other structural reforms, the banking reform intended to upgrade and modernize the current rules and in general covered the following banking related areas: capital adequacy, foreign exchange exposure, internal control and risk management, deposit guarantee schemes, accounting standards for financial disclosure purposes, prudential reporting and loan-loss provisions.
As a result, the restructuring program resulted in the following in the banking sector:
- The banking sector entered a consolidation process.
- The significance of state-owned and SDIF banks in the system has declined.
- Financial risks in the banking sector have been reduced to manageable levels.
- The capital structure of the sector has been strengthened.
- The sector has re-entered a growth period.
- The profitability performance of private banks has improved and state-owned banks have started to generate profit.
At the end of September 2004, the Turkish banks numbers were as follow:
Number of Banks
And lastly, let’s say few words on this table. As we can see, after banking crisis in November 2000 and February 2001, the numbers of commercial banks as well as all other banks has declined significantly. If in 1999 number of commercial banks were 62, in 2004 it has declined to 35. These crisis’s has huge negative impact on Turkish banking system, but nevertheless, it is still take the bull by the horns, and as many foreign banking giants as HSBC, Citibank, Fortis have entered the Turkish banking market it is sounds like it’s has a potential capacity and bright future.
References:
www.tsrsb.org.tr
F.S. Mishkin “The Economics of Money, Banking
and Financial Markets”
http://www.byegm.gov.tr
http://www.sigortacigazetesi.com.tr
http://www.die.gov.tr
http://www.marsh.com.tr