Bank

Turkish Islamic lender Bank Asya, whose management was taken over by regulators earlier this year, swung to a net loss of 877 million liras ($336 million) in 2014 on shrinking loans and deposits.

The bank, in which Turkish banking regulators seized a small stake last week over an alleged illegal share sale, had reported a net profit of 180.6 million liras in 2013.

By Yiannis Papadoyiannis

Brussels plans to send a senior competition official to Greece later this month to meet with the heads of the country?s commercial banks and check on the progress of the lenders? restructuring plans.

By Yiannis Papadoyiannis

Greek banks are struggling to stay alive, according to observers, as the flight of deposits and their only marginal replacement by liquidity supplied from the Eurosystem are not allowing the local credit sector anything more than the mere serving of cash flow needs.

BELGRADE - Serbia has a problem with a high share of non-performing loans - 22.5 percent of the entire loan portfolio, Governor of the National Bank of Serbia (NBS) Jorgovanka Tabakovic has said, pointing out that the NBS cannot be solving this problem alone, and needs support from the ministries and international financial institutions.

The Central Bank of Bahrain has granted a license to Turkish Islamic lender Turkey Finans to open a branch in Bahrain, the bank said in a written statement on March 4.

Turkey?s banking watchdog (BDDK) said yesterday regulators have taken control of a small stake in embattled Islamic lender Bank Asya over what it described as an illegal share transaction.

Turkey's third-largest state-run bank Vak?fbank received regulatory approval yesterday from banking watchdog BDDK to establish an Islamic banking division, the Official Gazette has announced.

The bank will need to own a capital of $300 million.

With the approval, the bank has nine months to establish its banking unit according to Turkish law.

By Evgenia Tzortzi

The Bank of Greece is in favor of the creation of a ?specialized entity? for the management of nonperforming loans (NPLs), saying in its annual report issued on Thursday that such an option would assist banks in ?financing healthy entrepreneurship.?

The level of deposits in Greek banks dropped by 12.2 billion euros in January, leaving 155.5 billion euros in the vaults, according to the ECB.

This reduction is attributed to political uncertainty ahead of the Jan. 25 election and the subsequent clash between the new Athens government and its eurozone creditors.

By Jonathan Saul & Sophie Sassard

Greece's leading banks are considering offloading part of their portfolios of shipping debt worth billions of dollars in a bid to shore up their capital, according to banking and ship financing sources.