Increasing Foreign Banks' Presence through M&As: The Case of Turkey

摘要

Turkey had been a closed economy until the beginning of 1980s. However, this changed once the government adopted liberalization and de-regulation programs at that time. Decreasing entry barriers and approved foreign ownership in the banking sector naturally triggered more foreign bank entry in the coming years. This trend got changed in nature especially after the currency crisis of 2001. Recovering from the crisis stronger with a growing economy, Turkish banking sector with its technologically advanced banks evoked the appetite of foreign counterparts that mostly chose the entry method of M&As. This created the empirical fact that while the number of foreign banks have been increasing, the number of (local) private banks have been decreasing due to these acquisitions in the decade of 2000s. This paper presents data for the mentioned result together with the review of Turkish banking sector starting from 1980s. The paper also examines the major deals that were realized in the last decade and tries to understand the reasons of increased foreign bank presence by outlining the 'pull factors' of the Turkish economy.