Market Policy of Banks in Turkey

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to examine several aspects of the banking market in Turkey to assess the nature of its structure and the state of competition. What kind of market structure exists in banking after the reforms? Was the entry of new banks sufficient to transform the market structure into a competitive one or did the distortions resulting from earlier financial and regulatory policies built endogenous constraints into the system thwarting competition regardless of new entry? Now that regulatory entry barriers are gone, are there mobility barriers in the system? These are some of the questions this study attempts to provide answers by drawing on market structure studies found in industrial organization literature and applying them to the Turkish banking market. The focus is on the commercial retail banking market since it is primarily through this channel that resources are mobilized and allocated. However, it must be noted at the outset that although recent developments in theory have improved our understanding of financial intermediation, there is still no fully developed theoretical model of banking competition and that the quantitative results of this study must be interpreted with caution.