20 A&T BANK ANNUAL REPORT 2015
A&T Bank reached its financial
targets in 2015 thanks to the
Bank’s strong capital structure.
MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN
Esteemed Shareholders,
We have left behind a year in
which global economic activity
underperformed expectations. The
significant decline in the value of
emerging market currencies against
the US dollar and low commodity
prices are negatively impacting the
growth potential of developing
countries. Significant capital
outflow from emerging markets is
currently being observed due to
the slowdown in Chinese economy
and uncertainties in global financial
markets. On the other hand, there
is a moderate recovery under way
in the most developed countries
led by the US economy. As a result
of the signs of a rebound in the
US, the Fed announced the first
interest rate hike as part of the
normalization of its monetary
policy. In the Eurozone, very gradual
signs of recovery are beginning to
emerge thanks to the expansionary
monetary policy of the European
Central Bank.
The Turkish economy expanded
3.4% during the first nine months
of 2015 due to the accelerating
recovery in the agricultural sector
and increased public and domestic
spending outlays. The Central
Bank of Turkey implemented the
necessary measures to combat the
vulnerabilities arising from sharp
currency fluctuations as well as
market volatility induced by current
global uncertainties.
The current account balance
continues to improve. This
improvement has resulted mainly
from the decline in commodity
prices, the ongoing cautious
monetary policy stance and the
reasonable level of loan growth
achieved by macroprudential
measures.
The banking industry, which
continued in its role as the driving
engine of the Turkish economy,
maintained strong asset growth
and profitability despite increasing
risks due to various global and
domestic developments. Even in
the face of growing concerns that
macroeconomic fluctuations might
begin to threaten asset quality,
non-performing loan and capital
adequacy ratios remained at healthy
levels at year-end.
Despite macroeconomic
fluctuations and adverse
geopolitical developments in our
main operating regions, A&T Bank
reached its financial targets in 2015
thanks to the Bank’s strong capital
structure. Total assets rose to
TL 4 billion, up 8.2% over year-end
2014. For the same period, the
Bank’s net term profit amounted
to TL 70.1 million while we boast a
return on equity (ROE) of 13.18%.
In line with A&T Bank’s customer-
oriented growth objective, we
continued to undertake efforts to
provide a more comprehensive
array of services to our customers
and to create cross-selling
opportunities in 2015. In addition,
the Bank also carried out upgrade
and improvement projects in its