Assessment of Bank Asya’s Activities in 2009

2009 highlights...
While strengthening its position in the national market in 2009, Bank Asya started to gain recognition in the international arena, and had important successes are contributing towards the bank’s long-term sustainability.
Throughout the year Bank Asya kept a close watch on both national and international developments and took a prudent approach to banking activities and focused on sound growth and sustainable profitability. Deploying the most effective practices of participation banking in line with its strategic goals, the bank demonstrated a successful performance in terms of both growth and profitability in 2009 by increasing market share and customer penetration despite economic recession.

Bank Asya demonstrated above sector average growth rate both in total assets and in cash loans. Cash loans increased 30.93% to TRY 8.3 billion while total assets reached TRY 11.6 billion, which is equal to43.16% rise during the same period. Similarly the ratio of the bank’s cash loans to total assets reached 71.97%.

Despite the rather large overall expansion in cash loan portfolio, the ratio of non-performing loans increased only marginally from 4.94% to 5.26%, appreciably below the sectoral average of 6% last year.

The growth in Bank Asya’s lending in 2009 was accompanied by healthy growth in deposits. Deposits are an indication of the confidence that customers have in a bank and last year Bank Asya increased its own to TRY 9.1 billion, which corresponds to a 56.4% rate of growth that is significantly above the sectoral average. The average maturity of deposits is above 100 days which is also above the market average.

In line with its policy of giving greater importance to liquidity in lending decisions, Bank Asya reduced the ratio of loans to deposits from 109.2% in 2008 to 91.5% in 2009.

In 2009 Bank Asya increased the number of its branches from 149 to 158 with the addition of five new branches located outside İstanbul. During the same period, the number of bank personnel also rose 7% to 4,074.
The rapid rise that Bank Asya embarked upon in 2006 continued in 2009 as well with the bank successfully demonstrating growth rates above sector averages.

In terms of total assets, Bank Asya ranked 14th among Turkey’s biggest banks in the third quarter of 2009. At the same time Bank Asya also ranked 13th in terms of total deposits and total cash loans.

In the July 2009 issue, The Banker magazine cited Bank Asya for its impressive performance while also moving the bank 235 positions forward to 520th place in its highly respected list of the world’s 1,000 biggest banks.

One of the best practitioners of corporate governance
With 51% of its shares publicly traded, Bank Asya is committed to fully comply with corporate governance principles in order to maximize the fulfillment of its responsibilities not just to its private and institutional shareholders but also to all of its stakeholders whether national or international. As one of the very first concerns to take part in the İstanbul Stock Exchange’s newly-introduced corporate governance index (CGI) project, Bank Asya sensitively fulfills all of the requirements of keeping private and institutional investors who hold shares in the bank informed within the framework of both corporate governance principles and the rule of transparency. One outcome of that sensitivity is that Bank Asya’s CGI rating was revised from 7.56 to 7.82 points out of a possible 10.

According to a report prepared by Sabancı University Corporate Governance Forum based on methodologies developed by Standard & Poor’s, Bank Asya is “the most transparent bank” in the “partnership structure and corporate structure” category among banks whose shares are traded on the İstanbul Stock Exchange. This is yet another indication of how indispensable a principle transparency is for Bank Asya.

AsyaCard DIT that was awarded by two international awards already controls a 30% share of the contactless credit card market.

DIT Pratik: Contactless, prepaid, multifunctional
In order to increase the quality of service while enhancing customer satisfaction, Bank Asya gives importance to adopting and deploying the most advanced technology to develop new products and services. In keeping with its vision of being the leading bank in contactless payment systems, Bank Asya expanded the utility of the limited-feature “DIT Pratik” prepaid contactless bank card that had been introduced for use in metropolitan transportation projects in a number of provinces in 2008 and transformed it into a brand-new and multifunctional “DIT Pratik”, which is now being offered to customers all over the country.

Bank Asya’s unbounded innovative strength is crowned with awards.
As an outcome of the bank’s ongoing investments in innovative products and services, AsyaCard DIT already controls a 30% share of the contactless credit card market. In addition to being a contactless credit card, it provides an integrated solution for transportation fare and highway toll payments as well. For such reasons, AsyaCard DIT was awarded by two international awards in 2009.

Last year AsyaCard DIT received both the “Best Cash Displacement Initiative” award in the “Visa Europe Best Card & Payment Sector Awards” and the Cards & Payments Organization’s “Best New Credit Card Product Launch” award. Both awards are granted to recognize and support innovative products that are designed to meet users’ different needs and serve them in different areas.

In 2009 AsyaCard DIT also received an award in the “Best New Credit Card Product Launch” category in the “Cards & Payments Awards” program which the international publications Cards International and Electronic Payments International have been conducting for 22 years and in which banks and banking products are rated in 10 different categories.

www.asyacard.com.tr: “Best in Class”
As a result of its ongoing efforts to perfect its alternative distribution channels, Bank Asya has begun reaching out to its customers through a brand-new website located at www.asyacard.com.tr that has been specially designed to allow users to keep up to date on the latest AsyaCard innovations and to manage their credit card accounts. In less than three months of its launch, the AsyaCard website received the “Best in Class” award from the Interactive Media Council. The council, whose 100 members number among leading names in the internet webscape and come from fourteen different countries, picked the AsyaCard website for the “Best in Class” award in the “Banking” category.

A more user-friendly online banking
In order to serve its customers better way via its alternative distribution channels, Bank Asya online banking underwent a renovation. and new features were added, some of which have never been available before over the internet banking services. Acting in line with its vision of being a respected, trustworthy, and effective bank which provides world-class service through the products that it develops and in keeping with its status as a bank in which 70% of its publicly traded shares are held by international investors, Bank Asya opened its English language internet banking for service in 2009.

Strategic partnership with Islamic Development Bank
In line with its strategy of expanding abroad, in 2009 Bank Asya entered into a strategic partnership agreement with Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector (ICD), an agency of the Islamic Development Bank (IDB). Under this partnership, Bank Asya will be engaging in interest-free banking activities along with IDB and ICD throughout the continent with a particular focus on West Africa.

Thanks to subject partnership agreement, taking advantage of growth potential in Africa, providing banking services to Turkish companies active in African countries, and advising Turkish businessmen on business and investment opportunities in the region is aimed.

Bank Asya has received a license from the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BRSA) to open a representative office in the city of Mumbai in India.