Turkey's GE Garanti Bank has boosted its assets seven times inthe past three years, since it embraced a retail growth strategy,reaching 1.2bn euros in September.
While most bankers are complaining about a lack of demand, whichdoes not allow them to boost their turnovers, the Turkish bank hasreported a 50% increase since the beginning of the year alone.Garanti's advantage, however, is that it does not have asignificant loan stock, so that repayments are not important, andeach newly granted loan immediately translated into a balance sheetincrease.
"There are good clients and companies to do business with duringthe crisis, as well. We have everything we need to grow: capital,cash and know-how. We're using the experience of Turkey, where theparent-bank has 10 million clients," says Murat Atay, 39, generalmanager of GE Garanti Bank Romania.
For the time being, the domestic subsidiary remains in the red,because of the high expenses, but Atay says the initial plan, ofstepping into the black in 2011, is still standing.
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