The Race of Big Numbers: Who Leads the Turkish Banking Sector? A Look at the Competition Between Ziraat Bankası and Türkiye İş Bankası
In a highly competitive banking market, leadership is not merely about having the largest balance sheet; it reflects a bank’s ability to expand its business base at a pace that outperforms competitors and to translate that growth into higher profitability and better operational efficiency.
Data from March 2026 shows that Ziraat Bankası continues to solidify its position as Turkey’s largest bank, maintaining a comfortable lead over Türkiye İş Bankası, which ranks second. This highlights the widening gap between the two institutions across most key financial indicators.
According to the data, Ziraat Bankası’s total assets reached approximately $216.84 billion by the end of March 2026, compared to $130.09 billion for Türkiye İş Bankası, reflecting the broader scale of its operations and its leadership in the Turkish market.
A similar picture emerges in deposits: Ziraat Bankası recorded a deposit portfolio of $136.31 billion, compared to about $75.20 billion for Türkiye İş Bankası by the end of March 2026. This indicates that Ziraat has a larger funding base, giving it greater flexibility to support growth and expansion.
The bank also maintained its lead in lending activity, with net loans reaching $115.03 billion by the end of March 2026, compared to $65.60 billion for Türkiye İş Bankası during the same period—underscoring its continued dominance in financing various sectors of the economy.
This superiority is not only due to its current size but also its growth pace over the past three years (from the end of 2022 to March 2026). Ziraat Bankası recorded asset growth of 58.9%, compared to 41.9% for Türkiye İş Bankası. As a result, the gap between the two banks widened from $44.77 billion at the end of 2022 to $86.75 billion by March 2026.
On the deposits side, although Türkiye İş Bankası achieved a higher growth rate of 47.7% compared to 31.5% for Ziraat Bankası over the past three years, Ziraat’s larger starting base allowed it not only to maintain its lead but also widen the gap in deposit volume to $61.11 billion by March 2026, up from $52.78 billion at the end of 2022.
In lending, Ziraat Bankası combined both larger scale and faster growth, with its loan portfolio increasing by 51% over the past three years, compared to 39.8% for Türkiye İş Bankası. This pushed the gap between them to $49.42 billion by March 2026, up from $29.27 billion in 2022.
This advantage also extended to profitability. Ziraat Bankası recorded net profits of $1.15 billion in Q1 2026, compared to $577.38 million for Türkiye İş Bankası during the same period—demonstrating a stronger ability to convert business growth into actual profits.
Efficiency indicators further reflect this strength: return on assets reached 2.12% for Ziraat Bankası versus 1.81% for Türkiye İş Bankası, while return on equity stood at 27.09% compared to 20.12% in Q1 2026, confirming more efficient use of resources and higher returns for shareholders.
This dominance is reinforced by a stronger capital base, with Ziraat Bankası’s capital reaching approximately $1.90 billion by the end of March 2026, compared to $562.38 million for Türkiye İş Bankası. This provides greater capacity to finance expansion plans, absorb risks, and sustain competitive momentum in the coming years.
These indicators suggest that competition between Ziraat Bankası and Türkiye İş Bankası will continue in the years ahead. However, maintaining leadership will depend not only on balance sheet size, but also on each bank’s ability to achieve sustainable growth without compromising asset quality or profitability levels.
While Ziraat Bankası enters the next phase supported by a larger business and capital base, Türkiye İş Bankası still has an opportunity to narrow the gap if it can sustain high growth rates and translate them into faster expansion in assets and lending—making the competition between Turkey’s two largest banks likely to intensify as the sector continues to evolve.
Despite ongoing competition, the current widening gap places Ziraat Bankası in a stronger position moving forward, backed by the largest asset, lending, and deposit base in the market.
Accordingly, the main challenge for Türkiye İş Bankası in the near term will not be overtaking the lead, but gradually narrowing the gap by achieving growth rates that outperform the market, thereby sustaining competitive momentum within the Turkish banking sector.
