24 / 324
INTRODUCTION
24
During this period, we have successfully expanded not
only our total assets but also our funding base. VakıfBank’s
total deposit portfolio, which stood at TL 81.5 billion in
2013, increased by 12.54% to TL 91.8 billion in 2014.
We aim to sustain the steady upward trend in deposits
in 2015 while further broadening our deposit base. In
addition, the continued expansion of our branch network,
as well as our high quality services and focus on customer
satisfaction, will help support our sustained growth over
the course of the upcoming period.
Our efforts to diversify our funding base and to increase
the average maturity of liabilities have continued. As one
of the leading Turkish financial institutions in international
banking, VakıfBank was the most active Turkish bank in
international markets in 2014. Our Eurobond and private
placement bond issues as part of the Global Medium-
Term Notes Program, along with syndication loans,
securitization loans, and other long-term and low-cost
facilities from a variety of sources, comprised our activities
in the international banking arena. VakıfBank was the
first bank to be involved in Turkey’s euro-denominated
Eurobond issuance. The transaction drew a record demand
of
€
5.3 billion and attracted more than 450 institutional
investors including various central banks.
In line with our strategy of expanding our balance sheet,
we have always strived to work more closely with our
customers across all channels. To this end, we opened
34 new branches in 2014. In addition, we continued to
modernize the ATM network to provide better service
for our customers and increased the number of ATMs by
9.59% YoY, reaching a total of 3,199 as of year-end 2014.
10.58%
Thanks to policies
focused on increasing
the quality of our assets,
the Bank has increased
its profits by 10.58%, to
TL 1.75 billion.
We use traditional channels as well as emerging
technological developments to provide better and faster
service for our customers. The Mobile Banking application
launched in 2014, designed for our retail customers, has
provided customer with access to a variety of services for
mobile phones and tablets.
In addition, we made significant progress on the
finalization of our VakıfBank Innovative Transformation
project (VIT), an effort we put considerable energy
and made extensive investments in. Customers will be
receiving better and faster service while the number of
customers will increase across all segments upon the
completion of this project.
While continuing to expand our balance sheet, we also
had a conservative stance regarding our NPL portfolio.
Our NPL ratio continued to improve as a result of better
collections, better monitoring of loans, and a lower level
of bad loan initiations. Bucking the trend in the industry,
our profitability ratios improved despite an increase in NPL
coverage ratio. We will sustain this successful performance
in 2015.
MESSAGE FROM THE
GENERAL MANAGER