Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Ziraat Bankası

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T.C. Ziraat Bankası

Type of Company	Bank
Founded	1863
Headquarters	Ankara, Turkey
Key people	Prof. Dr. İlhan Uludağ
Operating income	2.640 billion YTL
Net income	1.802 billion YTL
Website	http://www.ziraat.com.tr

Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Ziraat Bankası, also called as Ziraat Bankası, is the biggest Turkish bank. According to a research on "Top 1000 World Banks in 2004" made by The Bankers magazine, TC Ziraat Bankasi A.S. is ranked 115. (which is the highest among the Turkish banks) , moving up 26 places from the previous 141.

[edit] History

During the first half of the 19th century, with the adoptation of western models at the trade and finance, foreign banks began their activities in the Ottoman Empire. At that period, there was not enough capital to found a national banking system and no one could mention about the existence of national banks as a source of capital. This situation was more harmful on farmers because they had the majority in the population and since they had not any institutional financial structure to apply to, they had to borrow money from the usurers with high interest rates. At the same period Yugoslavia was bound to the Ottoman Empire and the governor of Nis province, Mithat Pasha (1822-1884) began to take the first steps to overcome these difficulties in 1863 and got the reorganization of Homeland Funds which became a law with Homeland Funds Regulations in 1867. Homeland Funds was the first agricultural financial institution founded by state and operated with state guarantee.

In 1888 Homeland funds renamed to Ziraat Bankası. Ziraat Bankası head office in Istanbul began to function. Greco-Turkish War between 1919 and 1922 affected bank's policy. The Greek Invasion Forces opened a Ziraat Bank Management Center in Izmir and occupied branches and funds were taken to the new Center's management. On the other hand Turkish Grand National Assembly charged Ankara branch of Ziraat Bank with the duty of management of branches and Funds. On September 9th of 1922 Izmir organization was subjected to Ankara and on October 23rd Istanbul organization was subjected to Ankara. After the National Independence War was won, Ziraat Bank became a united whole again. In 1993 Ziraat Bank Moscow, Kazkommerts Ziraat International Bank (KZI Bank), Turkmen Turkish Commercial Bank (TTC Bank) and Uzbekistan Turkish Bank (UT Bank)were founded and started to operate. In 2001 Emlak Bankası was merged with Ziraat Bankası and closed.