THE IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC BANKS IN TURKIYE IN THE COVID 19 PANDEMIC

Abstract

The Covid 19 epidemic, which emerged in China at the end of 2019 and spread all over the world, has caused hard times in all countries. In this time, the support of the public authority was needed due to the restriction of economic and social activities. In Türkiye, public supports were mostly implemented in the form of financial supports in order to maintain liquidity. It is seen that public banks play a major role in these financial supports. In this study, the behaviors of state-owned deposit banks during the pandemic and the support they provide to economic life were tried to be examined by comparing them with private and foreign deposit banks. According to the pre-pandemic situation, unlike other banks, it is seen that public banks are the group that gives the most loans in the sector. In addition, there has been no increase in the non-performing loans of public banks, thanks to opportunities such as postponement and restructuring of loan debts of companies and individuals. Due to these incentive loans of public banks, loan volumes reached enormous sizes, but it was observed that the profitability ratios did not increase at the same level. As a result, it has been clearly revealed that public banks work in a service-oriented manner instead of profit-oriented in order to prevent the economic recession caused by the pandemic, and that they are extremely important institutions in delivering government incentives to the public in times of economic depression.