Akbank

Akbank was founded in Adana, Turkey in January 1948, originally to provide financing for the cotton producers in the Çukurova region. As the majority of the bank founders were born in the city of Kayseri, the name "Adana-Kayseri Bankası" was chosen, soon to be shortened to its initials AK or Akbank. The founders were Hacı Ömer Sabancı, the industrialist brothers Ahmet Sapmaz and Bekir Sapmaz and the four owners of the Adana textile business Milli Mensucat; Nuh Naci Yazgan, Nuri Has, Mustafa Özgür and Seyit Tekin. This group had an 80% shareholding, with the remaining 20% offered to investors in Adana and Istanbul. Opening with a single branch in a corner of Adana Akbank grew and developed quickly, opening its first branch in Istanbul in the district of Sirkeci on 14 July 1950, and moving its headquarters to Istanbul in 1954. The original founders ran the bank until 1962 when it was taken over by Sabancı family.

Rapidly increasing the number of its branches, Akbank automated all banking operations in 1963.

On 9 January 2007, Akbank and Citigroup completed the strategic partnership agreement, according to which Citigroup acquired a 20% equity stake in Akbank for approximately US$3.1 billion (TRL 0.095 per share).

In 2013, Citigroup sold a 10.1% stake in Akbank as part of a move to prepare for the Basel III rule and technical reasons related to Citibank. Following this transaction, Citigroup's stake in Akbank was 9.9% but on 5 March 2015 Citi announced it was selling its remaining shares for $1.15 billion.

Akbank provides services to over 10.8 million active customers through Headquarters in Istanbul, Data and Life Center, 19 Regional Directorates in Turkey, 711 branches, and more than 12 thousand employees. Apart from the one-to-one service at branches, Akbank provides services through Akbank Internet, Akbank Mobile, Call Center, approximately 5900 ATMs, and 734 thousand POS terminals (including virtual POS) for customers. In addition to the foregoing, Akbank has international operations through subsidiary Akbank AG in Germany and a branch in Malta by drawing strength from Akbank’s reputable identity in Turkey.

As of 31 December 2022, Akbank reported a consolidated net profit of TL 60 billion 26 million and total consolidated assets of TL 1 trillion 147 billion. The consolidated capital adequacy ratio of Akbank, standing at approx 23.2%.

Akbank had several system failures in its history. First systemic one was in 2017 where its whole infrastructure stopped working. Similar incidents happened, but not limited to, 2021, 2022 and in 2024. While it is not common in Turkey, Akbank's frequent system outages caused millions of its customers not being pay at POS terminals or transfer funds.

Operations

As of 2008, Akbank ranked as Turkey's most valuable bank, having the most profitable banking operations among privately owned banks in Turkey. Also, Akbank is one of the largest banks in Turkey in terms of loan volume.

Together with its core banking activities, Akbank offers a wide range of retail, commercial, corporate, private banking and international trade finance services. Non-banking financial services, as well as capital market and investment services, are provided by the Bank's subsidiaries.

It has a domestic distribution network that includes over 800 branches and around 14,000 employees, Akbank operates from its headquarters in Istanbul and 20 regional directorates around Turkey. Akbank provides services not only through its branches, which include "Credit Express" consumer loan only branches and "Big Red House" mortgage loan only branches, but also through Retail and Corporate Internet Branches, the Telephone Banking Center, 4,550 ATMs, 510,000 POS terminals.

Akbank is listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) where approx. 51.1% of its shares are publicly traded. Akbank shares constitute 4.9% of the total BIST 100 market capitalization and 16.9% of the total market capitalization of banks listed on BIST as of June 2018.