Halk Bankası

Halk Bank
Anonim Şirket
Traded as BİST: HALKB
Industry Banking
Founded 1938
Headquarters Ankara, Turkey
Key people
 Hasan Cebeci
Products Financial Services, credit cards, consumer banking, corporate banking, investment banking, mortgage loans, private banking
Total assets TRY109 billion (2012)[1]
Total equity TRY11.5 billion (2012)[1]
Website www.halkbank.com.tr

Halk Bankası ("People's Bank"), or Halkbank, is a large Turkish state-owned bank.

History

Halkbank was incorporated in 1933 and began offering services 1938, it initially provided loan services via the People’s Funds. After 1950, Halkbank was authorized to directly open branches and grant loans to customers. By the beginning of 1964, Halkbank had embarked upon an ambitious program where it increased capital and became more active by establishing a nationwide network of branches.[2]

Today it is the seventh-largest bank in Turkey in terms of assets.[3]

Iranian oil trading controversy

Halkbank was a link in the chain to finance Iranian petroleum interests in the wake of U.S.-led nuclear sanctions.[4] In March 2012 Iran was stopped from using the international money transfer system SWIFT.[5] Halkbank seems, between March 2012 and July 2013 while the UN sanctions regime was in place prior to the November 2013 P5+1 agreement, to have purchased some $13bn worth of gold on the open market.[6] The sanctions prevented Iran from being paid in dollars or euros, but gold was never mentioned in the sanctions regime, and therefore this loophole allowed gold to be used to fund the purchase of Iranian petroleum products. Halkbank allowed the middlemen of Iran to buy gold with their Turkish lira, and that gold found its way back to Iranian coffers.[6] One investigation found that US$2bn in gold bullion (about 36 tonnes) was flown from Turkey to Dubai in August 2012 alone.[5] In defending its decision not to enforce its own sanctions, the Obama administration insisted that Turkey only transferred gold to private Iranian citizens. The administration argued that, as a result, this wasn't an explicit violation of its executive order. Iranian Ambassador to Turkey Ali Reza Bikdeli recently praised Halkbank for its "smart management decisions in recent years [that] have played an important role in Iranian-Turkish relations."[6] Halkbank stated that there were no sanctions against trading precious metals with Iran until 1 July 2013.[5]

Halkbank also had Indian accounts that in 2013 traded with Iran: "India now owes Iran $5.3 billion in oil debt. India is planning to pay Iran $1 billion per month -- that is $12 billion annually -- also through Halkbank."[5]

2013 corruption investigation

In December 2013 Halkbank's CEO Süleyman Aslan was arrested and charged with taking bribes[7] from, amongst others, Reza Zarrab, an Iranian-Azeri businessman who had taken Turkish citizenship under the name Sarraf.[5] Police reportedly discovered shoeboxes containing US$4.5 million in the home of Aslan.[5][6] Scores of police officials have reportedly been dismissed because their investigations made politicians uncomfortable. The chain of police command was changed so that politicians would be informed of, and could frustrate, police activities. This caused an injunction to be heard in the court system, who blocked the change. A prosecutor was dismissed.[5]

The arrest, which came along with many other arrests of officials allied with then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (now President of Turkey), is seen as part of a power struggle between the prime minister and U.S.-based Turkish religious leader Fethullah Gülen,[8][9] who inspires Hizmet, an Islamic civil movement. "Those who don't see the thief but go after those who chase the thief - may Allah bring fire to their homes," said Gülen.[5]

Oya Özarslan, of the corruption watchdog Transparency International, is worried: "[R]ecent changes in the police forces and public prosecutors breaking out this scandal as well as the changes in the regulation of the police forces leave a number of question marks."[5]

U.S. conviction of executive

In March 2017, deputy head of the bank Mehmet Hakan Atilla was arrested[10] by the U.S. government for conspiring to evade sanctions against Iran by helping Zarrab "use U.S. financial institutions to engage in prohibited financial transactions that illegally funneled millions of dollars to Iran".[11] Zarrab was arrested in Miami, Florida, in March 2016.[12] In Ankara in March 2017, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said there was no link between the Turkish request for extradition of Gülen and the arrest of Atilla and that both cases would proceed in conformity with the law.[10] Atilla's trial commenced in New York City federal court in November 2017, with Zarrab agreeing to testify after reaching a plea deal with prosecutors.[13] According to the New York Times, the prosecution of Atilla and others has "sent tremors" through Turkish political circles. Erdogan has sought, unsuccessfully, to persuade American officials to drop the case, and the state media has been downplaying coverage of the trial.[14]

In early 2018, Atilla was convicted on five of six counts against him, including bank fraud and conspiracies and acquitted on one count after four days of jury deliberation. Zarrab was the prime prosecution witness in the seven days of trial testimony. Atilla's sentencing is scheduled for April 2018 and the bank fraud count alone carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.[15] Seven other co-defendants are still at large.[16] In August 2018, Turkey and the United States were negotiating over the imprisonment by Turkey of pastor Andrew Brunson and neared an exchange which would have allowed Atilla to serve out his term "at home". But the Turkish foreign minister, per one report citing other reports, asked American officials "to kill any investigation into Halkbank". After that, for the time, "the deal collapsed".[17]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Consolidated Balance Sheet" (PDF). 31 December 2012.
  2. ↑ "About Halkbank - History". Archived from the original on 2013-09-02.
  3. ↑ Halk Bankası - Corporate Profile
  4. ↑ Hart, Matthew, "All that glitters is not enriched uranium", Globe and Mail, 21 November 2013.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Johnson, Glen, and Richard Spencer, "Turkey's politicians, gold dealer and the pop star", The Daily Telegraph, 29 December 2013.
  6. 1 2 3 4 "Iran's Turkish gold rush", Archived 2013-12-30 at the Wayback Machine. Sunday's Zaman, 27 December 2013.
  7. ↑ AFP (2013-12-21). "Turkey's PM warns he could expel ambassadors over graft probe arrests". The Telegraph. Retrieved 2013-12-22.
  8. ↑ "Erdogan blames 'international groups' for corruption scandal that rocks Turkey". The Jerusalem Post. Reuters. 21 December 2013. Retrieved 22 December 2013.
  9. ↑ Humeyra Pamuk (16 December 2013). "Enigmatic Turkish cleric poses challenge to Erdogan's might". Reuters. Retrieved 22 December 2013.
  10. 1 2 Stafford, Edward G. (6 April 2017). "What Tillerson's meeting in Turkey reveals about Trump's America First (opinion)". The Hill.
  11. ↑ "Turkish Banker Arrested For Conspiring To Evade U.S. Sanctions Against Iran And Other Offenses". Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Office – Southern District of New York. 28 March 2017.
  12. ↑ "Iran's Turkish connection – Golden squeal". The Economist. 9 June 2016.
  13. ↑ "Gold trader Zarrab will be star witness in Iran sanction-busting trial". NBC News. 28 November 2017.
  14. ↑ Weiser, Benjamin (29 November 2017). "Reza Zarrab Testifies That He Bribed Turkish Minister". The New York Times.
  15. ↑ Weiser, Benjamin; Gall, Carlotta (3 January 2018). "Banker From Turkey Is Convicted in U.S. Over Plot to Evade Iran Sanctions". The New York Times.
  16. ↑ "Former Turkish Minister Of The Economy, Former General Manager Of Turkish Government-Owned Bank, And Two Other Individuals Charged With Conspiring To Evade U.S. Sanctions Against Iran And Other Offenses", Department of Justice U.S. Attorney’s Office Southern District of New York, September 6, 2017. Retrieved 2018-01-03.
  17. ↑ "Turkey’s diplomatic crisis is hastening an economic one", The Economist, August 9, 2018. Retrieved 2018-08-23.
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