Garanti Bank

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Garanti Bank

Type	Bank
Founded	1946
Headquarters	Istanbul, Turkey
Key people	Mr. Ferit Sahenk
Parent	Doğuş Group
Website	http://www.garanti.com.tr

Garanti Bank is the third largest private bank in Turkey with USD$24.4 billion asset size as of September 30, 2005. Garanti provides retail, commercial, corporate and private banking services to over five million customers. It operates 428 domestic branches, five foreign branches (in Luxembourg, Malta and Northern Cyprus, five international representative offices (in Moscow,^[1] London, Dusseldorf, and Geneva), 1,220 ATMs, a call center and an Internet bank.

1 Background
2 Services
3 See also
4 Notes
5 External links

[edit] Background

Garanti was created as a privately owned commercial bank in Ankara in 1946. In 1983 Garanti was acquired by the Doğuş Group - one of Turkey's largest conglomerates with operations in processed food, retailing, contracting, financial services and tourism. In 2001, Garanti grew into one of the largest participants in the Turkish banking sector as a result of Doğuş Group’s decision to merge its banking operations under Garanti. Since the Doğuş Group’s acquisition of Garanti, its assets grew from $386 million reaching over $24 billion by 2005.

On December 23, 2005, Doğuş Group and General Electric (GE) signed an agreement to form an equal partnership in Garanti shareholding. Under the agreement, GE acquired half of Garanti Bank’s common stock held by Doğuş Group - a 25.5 percent stake.^[2] The Board of Directors currently consists of equal numbers of directors appointed from Doğuş Group and GE, headed by Ferit Şahenk - Chairman of the Doğuş Group. Ergun Özen continues its position as President and CEO of Garanti Bank.

[edit] Services

Garanti is one of the country's leaders inforeign trade, financing 15 percent of Turkey's exports and 13 percent of its imports during 2005. The bank is also active in asset management, custodian and Internet banking and manages a growing credit card loyalty reward program. Through Bonus Card and Shop & Miles, Garanti's credit card business currently ranks second in Turkey's credit card market. Garanti's market share in issuing volume was 21.1% as of June 2005, reaching 4.6 million credit cards. Garanti, through Bonus Card, allied with Denizbank in April 2003 to issue its own credit cards under the Bonus brand. Garanti has also achieved success in migrating banking transactions from branches to alternative distribution channels. As of September 2005, nearly 76 percent of all banking transactions were carried out through alternative channels including ATMs, Internet and the call centre. Garanti's Internet Banking has a usage rate of 52 percent in comparable transactions.